WARNING
WARNING

HISTORICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REAL LIFE TIMELINE AND GFH TIMELINE

THE SS WERE ABLE TO CAPTURE A KALININ K 7 FROM THE RUSSIANS.

SKORZENY WAS AWARE WHERE IT WAS WHEN HE FLED.

And So I present to you, Skorzeny's baby, the results of sixty years of funding and research put into building a flying fortress.

I give you the Donnergrollen

-The prop engines have been replaced with independently adjustable, freely directed turbojets, allowing for faster flight, higher maneuverability, the ability to hover, directly ascend and descend.
-The old armor plated fuselage has been replaced with modern layered alloys and composites with reduced weight and increased defensive properties.
-A total of nine THEL (Nautilus Laser) apertures are mounted as anti-missile and close to mid-range anti-air defense systems. One facing downward, one facing outward on each crew compartment, one facing forward and up, one facing backward and up on each wing, and one facing directly backwards on the middle of the wing.
-The new turbojets, the nine total Nautilus lasers and the comprehensive communications and sensor equipment are powered by a reactor created from stolen blueprints of the reactor on the US NR-1 nuclear submarine and Project Pluto, making the Donnergrollen the only nuclear-powered aircraft in the world.
-Each crew pod is equipped with an fully adjustable Gau-8 turret with 63,000 rounds per gun pod. Due to the engine configuration, this means the Donnergrollen can perform two independent strafing runs, or provide saturated fire on two separate locations, depending on whether it is hovering or not.
-Each of the two crew pods has a set of twenty missile launchers carrying W54 nuclear warheads married to modern missile chassis complete with computer assisted lock-on and seeking technology.
-Each wing is outfitted with a radar target designator. Both pool their data to provide assisted targeting to all Donnergrollen weapon systems for target identification and positioning purposes.
-A bevy of target jamming and communications interception software and equipment on board means that all enemy communication and lock-on attempts will be combated within a two mile zone of the Donnergrollen.
-A total of two UGM-133 Trigent II missiles rebuilt with data from Project Pluto. Thanks to Nuclear ramjet propulsion, can penetrate far deeper into enemy airspace without risk of interception.

A little Nazi Flying Doom Fortress for you.

>Ideas
So the goblins have these brownies that are basically invisible messenger and watcher minions, right? I can't help but wonder how hard it would be for Armas to get a handful of brownies contracted out to him as loyal minions for the duration of his life. Could be ridiculously handy. Given that the goblins have a wildly stilted view of what is valuable and what is a reasonable period of time compared to humans, it might turn out to be surprisingly affordable or completely impossible.

>Things you don't like
This quest really needs an obsessively updated wiki and it doesn't have one. I will have to get on that one of these days, if only because it's so damned easy to lose track of things. If nothing else we should use it as Armas' appointments calendar and list of outstanding debts and obligations.

awesome! a dedicated GFH dis thread.

@Goblins training: so far you are just teaching them how to use the guns you own. What about flashbangs, grenades, teargas, teasers? How about buying some common guns types you don't currently own to teach. For example, shotgun and low caliber small arms (eg, a typical .22 pistols).
Also teach how to set land mines, or satchel charges. and improvised explosives.

How about mentioning defensive techniques used in war. How to avoid getting shot, urban warfare techniques, recognizing a flash-bang and how to protect yourself when you see one thrown at you, etc.

Now, if training with them in the above starts to dry up you can bring up new things, such as:
Learning about general capabilities of modern war machines. Tanks, submarines, smart bombs, airplanes, Helicopters, Helicopter mounted chain-guns, nukes, etc. Get some instructional videos and explain their general properties. Ask sometimes merchant if the items in the last paragraph, being items you can't teach the use of only share general information about, should they be part of the instruction or should they be traded to SM separately. I imagine the latter since you can't teach them that, he just needs to know what to find other mortal teachers for... OR you could find teachers for those specifically. Do you have any relatives or close friends in the army who pilot a helicopter or drive a tank? Have the deal stipulate that they are responsible for acquiring said war machine and its supplies.

gate discussion:
Fang:
>"You are familiar with the concept of spontaneous combustion?"
>"The vast majority of cases are due to the Other side. As it and beings within it try to reach the mortal plane, they reach out to anything that can act as anchor. While some beings from the Other side can directly possess individuals without immediate issue, the Other side itself cannot. So when is it not an individual, but... a multidimensional living world, no mortal can take it. They are destroyed as a Gate to the Other side is opened in their flesh."

Ogrimar / summer aspect:
>Call those gates the Nevernever-opening.

Goblin:
>You have not become a living Conduit, nor have you died.

Alright, so first of, it seems that such gates are NOT actually always lethal as fang has said, since the goblins have said that another possibility is to become a "living conduit".

>>347117
I like this!

>>347131
A living conduit is a wizard, which is something we can never be. Got to have absolutely no magic whatsoever when hit by magic lightning for that.

>>347137
where did that info come from?
And what if you somehow predict the next time it is going to happen and somehow expel all magic from your body just before it happens?

>>347142
Got it from IRC, and not possible One, we don't know if even the potential for bloodline powers counts as having magic, and two because the Cannibal magic is ingrained in our Soul now, so no getting rid of it. The palindrome bonus only builds up an immunity to all(good and bad) magic energy because we get sort of used to channeling shit-ton of it. All in all, it's a bad thing, but if it happens one more we'll get a bonus related to rule of three.

>>347117
>I will have to get on that one of these days
So some people have started working on this, and I was looking at implementing something nifty- trying to put together a template that we can use for every character which is basically a collapsible box that has their original image, name, description, affiliations, a link to the initial post in which they appeared, a list of notable assets/weapons, a summary of their actions in-quest, and possibly any other facts that we know about them (such as IRC-stated information).

And I have to ask... does the tgchan wiki not support collapsible boxes? Because without the collapsing putting that much information on the page would be utterly ridiculous. (It is possible that I just don't know what the hell I'm doing, of course, and the wiki does support it but I'm going about it all wrong.)

Here are some chat longs that should probably be shared. One is for a trait we could potentially earn if we eat the right things. The next describes what our latest trait does. The one after that deals with if it can break rule of three deals made before it was acquired. And the last is a potential way we could use the knowledge of the third portion of the chat logs and the trait effectively.

20:04GuileI want to meet someone of german, italian and japanese descent. Rule of Three AND All Axis Power bloodline.
20:05TheBeardiestBobYou have just describe the body Hitler possesses
20:05GrailOh well, we're not going to fight Hitler any time soon.
20:06TheBeardiestBobyeah-Skorzeny's the one that is an actual threat and not some 'WEHWEHWEHI'MNOTFUHRERANYMOREBAWWWW' bitch
20:06GrailI bet the flesh of Hitler is pretty damn tasty though
20:07GrailOh man Bob, could we get a trait like the New Vegas perk Meat of Champions?
20:07GrailIf we manage to eat Hitler and several other world leaders?
20:08TheBeardiestBobIf you eat from: An angel, a devil, some sort of divine immortal being of neutral origin, a king and a queen... then yes
20:08TheBeardiestBobyou would get an AWESOME Wendigo-perk
20:09TheBeardiestBobCan you say 'Favored of Bakbakwalanooksiwae?"
20:09TheBeardiestBob...Actually, I don't know if you CAN say that
20:10GrailWhaitiri count for the divine immortal being?
20:10GrailOr does she not count as neutral?
20:10TheBeardiestBobyes, yes she does count as neutralo
20:10TheBeardiestBoband the demon blood would not work, as that is imp blood
20:10TheBeardiestBobwhich is like dirt weed, but blood

15:14TheBeardiestBobNew trait lets you go 'SORRY SON' to Deals made with Rule of Three-at any point you can forcibly break free of the deal, negating its properties if an involved party.
15:14TheBeardiestBobI would not recommend advertising such an ability
15:14TheBeardiestBobsince just about NO ONE can do it, what with needing to be struck by magic lightning three times and all
15:15ManOfTroySO, bob, when we hit Six, or Nine, will we start being this anti-magic black hole?
15:16TheBeardiestBobnext levels are six, nine and thirteen, yes
15:16TheBeardiestBobI would not recommend reaching thirteen


19:17GrailHm wonder if our new power of three trait applies to rule of three agreements we have already made, like the one with Cornelius
19:18TheBeardiestBobit does-but the magically savvy can feel such a deal breaking-and he would NOT be happy
19:19GrailSo he would know if the witch undid it as well?
19:20TheBeardiestBobyup
19:20TheBeardiestBobyou can't pick both sides
19:20TheBeardiestBobyou are meeting the addams and munster family types
19:20Gunpowder_SymphonyI expect we'd lose that bargain credibility trait too if we cheesed out of the deal, huh?
19:20Guileso, only resort to the lycanthropes if it turns out we cant kill doony
19:21Dkay_rule of the 3 is not that great of a trait, I think, if we use it too much we might lose our Word like Gold trait
19:21Guileonce might be enough, if Zosimus spreads it around
19:21GrailI honestly like the Werewolves better
19:21Guilestill a good option to have, tho
19:21GrailBut the way we have to join them kind of sucks
19:22TheBeardiestBobalso, consider that means Zosimus' family is the one with the nightmarish Flesh Golem Adam-style frankenstein

19:24GrailI don't suppose Zosy could tell who broke it right?
19:25GrailIt would be kind of boss to go up to her, break it our self, and say thanks for the offer, but we an handle ourselves.
19:25GrailBut of course then she knows we can break said deals
19:26GrailAnd that's blatantly advertising a skill we should not advertise
19:27TheBeardiestBobGrail if you did that you would indeed impress the hell out of her if you rolled with your Traits correctly there

>>347147
I don't think the wiki supports collapsible boxes, but we don't need them yet. If it grows too large we can split it into multiple pages like we did for the GQ wiki. And by the way any help the wiki would be welcome, right now all I have is the character list section that I'm slowly filling up. If anyone wants to write some character descriptions or dig up their weapon info and post it on the wiki it would be very appreciated.

mmm, so... vampires or werewolves? Normally I would prefer werewolves, unless its a case of "our vampires are different"... vampires have more crippling weaknesses, and are undead, must feed on humans, and have bouts of uncontrollable hunger where they go berserk. Being undead also means no reproducing, you fail at the game of life. Werewolves can have families... Of course, then there is the issue with werewolves going beserk on full moon and hunting humans... and in some settings vampires can have families, having pureblood vampires and even werewolf-vampire halfbreeds... I think we need to get some survival lessons from goblins focusing on the nature of supernatural creatures to get answers to such questions.

Anyways, the problem with accepting the werewolves offer is that they are asking us to break a deal AND to not kill doonie... armas ia man of his word.

Perhaps we could contact the weres and let them know of that fact? We deal with the fae and cannot afford to damage our reputation in such a manner?
Mitigate the damage of said refusal. (which is significantly less then the damage to our rep with the vamps if we help the weres "humiliate" him).

We could aim at cordial working relationships with both the vamps and weres where we only attack 3rd parties at their behalf, not each other...
Although I can see great rewards to siding with one or the other.

Bob!t/UKid4z5s 2011/06/04(Sat)12:02 No. 37477 ID: a76809
File 130721417687.jpg - (116.77KB , 830x830 , AORB Soldiers equipment.jpg )

In the Guns For Hire Setting, enough people are in the know that officials in world governments are in the know. Not all of them-and not even a great many-but enough. And so there are indeed official government agencies dealing with the supernatural-but most are political, or investigative, focused on finesse. For dealing with the supernatural when it gets out of hand, there is indeed a higher power. On the American continent, Canada, the United States, Mexico and a number of south American countries channel defense funds to-
TRANS-AMERICAN ANTI-OCCULT-RESPONSE BATTALION [A.O.R.B.] :
GROUND FORCES ARMAMENTS:
-A one-ton powered walker (electric, battery powered, externally charged) with a thirty minute operation time, with a left-side mounted composite, detachable shield with a two hundred degree turn radius on the torso mounted track.
-Shields are able to ablate a 100mm HESH round, and can be replaced by a ready crew in thirty seconds.
-The armors are equipped with an automatic 20mm rifle, attached to a swivel mount on the right side of the torso track, with a ninety degree track range and a sixty degree rifle-mount rang of orbital motion.
-The rifle is loaded with one of four sixty-round drum magazines, two in armor piercing incendiary, two in discarding sabot armor piercing, contained in an automated reloading frame controlled by a joystick on the left side. The Ammunition frame is kept close to the body, and is automated to track to behind the shield's protection to avoid ammunition rupture.
-The torso is equipped with formidable jamming and decryption capabilities within several hundred meters, and can network with other nearby powered walkers to boost processing ability. This central mount also houses a mid-ranged thermal vision equipped camera, that feeds to a view the pilot can observe and direct.
-On each shoulder of the torso mount, a three-barreled 90mm MATADOR cluster is mounted, connected to both the control-helmet Line Of Sight laser sighting system and the rifle-mounted rangefinder, for mid and long-range employment, respectively. The clusters are fully detachable, and automatically detach once all three tubes have been emptied. A new cluster can be mounted in ten seconds with a ready lift to place the new clusters.
-The walker's legs have modular mounts for tracks or conventional wheels, to allow swift movement on flatter terrains while still retaining bipedal mobility. In urban settings, a walker given a standard load can achieve speeds of forty miles per hour and turn far more sharply than a tank.

>>347277
Almost no armor except for the shield, handles like total shit on soft ground, is unstable to the point that a simple pothole or tripwire can completely wreck it, and it has a very short operational range (even an attack helicopter can go a good 2-3 hours without refueling). It's also extremely expensive to maintain because you have to not only get unique and high-performance parts but also bribe the contractors into keeping their mouths shut. All in all, they're better off just sending in a tank - faster on an open road, can steer in place faster, can see and shoot backwards, has like a bajillion times more firepower, is cheaper to build and maintain, has a range of several hundred miles, can shrug off almost every infantry weapon in existence, is armed with an artillery gun, if all else fails you can just run the enemy down, and it's a hell of a lot less conspicuous because it actually exists in the real world. Oh, and the only way to "trip" a tank is to cause the whole thing to fall into a specially made trench.

Just some problems I noticed.

we actually do have a exo-skeletal armor in real life, it is just a support thing though as it has no armor, but would let a person replace an entire artillery crew.

>>347279
-Made for urban settings wherein soft ground should not be an issue-and the picture is misleading, the AORB walkers do not have such tiny platform feet.
-Can be airlifted to scenes with any of a bevy of helicopters, or even delivered inside conventional covered trucks, so operation time can start as far from the target as desired.
-The suit itself does not have to account for any battery or fuel weight beyond a few pounds, having crystals crafted by government contracted electrical Practitioners to act as a chargeable 'well' that can be externally filled.
-With the primary operations area being urban areas where being quite is key, getting in a tank is unfeasible-but delivery trucks and work crews, complete with some Practitioners to create a zone of silence can run multi-unit operations and barring mid-day in down-town be likely to have sufficiently arranged resources to keep the event disguised.
-They have a few B-movies they periodically rewrite that the can say they are filming on accidental exposure, given that people 'know' powered walkers and the like are not in use. They specifically wanted something they could say is not real-and in their respective countries have been pushing AGAINST mechanized infantry so their equipment does not become more 'believable'.
-Between supernatural deals for preferential/free resources/labor and the contacts of all those involved, the end cost for making one walker, minus shields, gun and MATADOR clusters, is about $25,000. Because a considerable portion of the more unique mechanical structure and components are built on the Other side (plenty people recognize the use of Deals) and so can in theory be produced in infinite amount, even in an instant. So all AORB has to do to build these is have the armor coverings for the legs and torso forged, the shield made, gun and ammo hopper.
-Falling over/being tripped is still a concern, yes, and a huge weakness for these things.

>>347281
So that makes it an armored suit, heavy infantry, and with low cost...seems effective, but I can't help but think there's a major flaw in the way they designed the armored parts...

You know what we need to get?

The Belmont whip. Fucking roman vampire won't stand a chance.

>>347284
As we don't have the Belmont bloodline, it's unlikely that we could take full advantage of its power.

>>347259
Did some wiki stuff. Pictures for everything, where they were available. Improvement of the character template is on the to-do list; for now, as long as we input everything using it then the data should be smoothly shifted around to fit whatever we come up with as the desired format later. Something more structured than the relatively freeform descriptions used in Golem Quest is desired here; we can use the appropriate talk pages for hashing out what exactly it should contain.

I'ma just post this here because it's a personal pet peeve of mine.

Information relevant to the story and necessary to suggest actions should not be relayed in IRC. That venue should only be used for things that will never be relevant in the quest, such as missed plot lines that will not effect anything, or fluff things what would never come up ever.

Good example: Revealing in IRC that we could have killed another player character early in the quest had we taken a different action or set of actions.

Bad example: Revealing in IRC that a certain character stole all out money the other night.

The main issue here is that most people who read the quest just read the quest, and those 'catching up' will have 0 frame of reference for some actions taken with regards to said information.

In short, stay out of revealing shit in the IRC instead of in the quest itself. If you really have to, POST LOGS YOURSELF so that people don't stumble around wondering what the fuck everyone is talking about - don't wait for another player to take action.

>>347280
actually, artillery crews are being replaced by fully 100% automated specialized machinery in next gen artillery.
But yes, current power armor is designed solely for heavy lifting.

Guile 2011/06/06(Mon)15:48 No. 37535 ID: ae0719
File 130740050573.jpg - (253.89KB , 1568x2184 , blackbeard11.jpg )

Just a thing, to hold it until Blackbeard shows up.

(This is a list of each of the parties we know of that would be interested in making deals for our palindrome based lightening strikes and what each would offer for it. This is pretty much direct quotes from the chat conversation that they were brought up in. My personal favorite is the what the werewolf matron would offer, totally not because I helped with it's design.)

What the Matron could do is offer to bind a rage spirit from the Nevernever to us. She could do a few different things, depending on the scale of the rage spirit we sought. For a small one, sure she could bind it in us, and after an initial dominance struggle it would obey us whenever activated-but wouldn't have much kick. Armas' soul as is can not handle anything larger, it'd be like a sardine taking on a carp, spiritually speaking. He would need to be an Einherjar or in some other way a being linked to rage to take that WITHOUT a considerably bigger soul. She could bind a mid-sized one to a ring, bracelet or amulet, and we could trigger with a spoken word-or for upper tier ones, bleed on the amulet. Then there would be the hypothetical apex of what she can make, which would be an amulet that has to be in contact with our flesh that, if we eat one of these specially prepared medicine balls, and while doing so bite our cheek to imbibe our own blood, we could have a Greater Aspect of Rage bound in us, well not in us but bound in an amulet and only unsealable through a very specific means (the medicine, for a temporary thing)-the downside would be the thing is so powerful we have to fight it to regain control of our body when we want it to 'stop'. If we play on the Maori side and the blood lust induced cannibalism aspect we could use that to make eating magically charged food auto-recover us from the Apex version if on hand, so that we: pop magic pill, RAGE EVERYWHERE, eat jerky, revert, start healing whatever damage we did RAGING. If we go with the 'greater rage fragment' option, and as you awaken the winter side, potential Einherjar fun and all that, it will make the amount of power you can draw out without exploding greater. Think of a Greater Rage Fragment as a tiny Nevernever that will open a smaller, less ludicrous, burnout-inducing gate in you. a mid sized fragment is still something that can be defined as an entity-a greater fragment is more a space or zone of the nevernever.

Ask for the Rage fragment to be bound in a belt buckle, keep the medicine balls in belt buckle. This would be the basis for a really great magic utility belt. Get pouches for storing things like jerky, loops for Mammon's Device rounds and flash bangs, hooks for rope and duct tape, and . Great thing is you can also get a holster for the Device to hang at your hip, then you have THREE GUNS at hip level to go for. And With some quick finger work to get a medicine balls and being smart we could keep it pretty quiet.


Then there's the vampires, who would trade you a supply of /mixed/ millenia old vampire blood so we could ghoul ourself on command for half a day without giving us a 'master'. It gives you regeneration, complete immunity to shock, the ability to absorb foreign blood to fuel us while so empowered-and constantly 'burns' the imbibed blood, with healing, or heavy uses of strength burning it faster. Taking on foreign blood can slow this process, but not stop or reverse it.


There's also the goblins, who will basically auto-complete our moving silently and sneaking training in the Nevernever to Sometimes Merchant's level. Instant ninja.


Dorjpalam? He'll give us a Wizard contract, and let us negotiate a power we could get for the strikes. Something like 'every time lightning would have struck me I can now do X three times at will', for MONSTER powerful, or something we just trade for and that's it, which would be mid-tier

>>347336
alright, this saves us from the semilong process of actually going to them one by one and asking...
Of course, that also means we skipped the options to negotiate.

I don't like transient one use things like mixed blood much... if we went that way we could ask for the pure blood of the oldest living vampire... heck, get turned by the oldest most powerful werewolf then drain your own blood and drink said vampire blood, instant werewolf-vampire half made from best and oldest most powerful stock... but that was just a wild idea, lets not do that since curses are lame, and so is having a master or losing the ability to have children (we got a dynasty to start here).

I very VERY much like the instant /MAGIC/ ninja deal with the goblins. And its just for one strike... we could just barter for unlocking better knowledge and have each strike be worth lots of "hours" for us to redeem. This seems like the best option. Also we could ask them to include a brownie of our very own :P.

The whole "be introduced to a wizard for a strike" is weak, we know of a powerful wizard fighting doonies boss and we know has contacts with mafia, possibly triads, and possibly the goblins could introduce us (for much less then a strike), we should get that done.

I would like to point out that something occurred to me... every strike that happens strips us of our magic some more. Becoming a living conduit will stop such strikes AND make armas a true full blown mage... Becoming a living conduit requires you have no magic... every strike strips us of magic... becoming a living conduit requires no magic... See where I am going here?

With the right support group... trade a FEW strikes to the summer court, a few to the winter court, a few the most powerful human wizard on earth... what for? for the three of them working together to temporarily strip you of magic and ensure you become a living conduit on the next strike (after they were all paid) and then to be trained to goblin ninja levels, and be trained as a proper wizard by the most powerful wizard on earth. Such training might cost armas a little extra, such as serving said wizard for a certain number of years... or if that wizard IS the one here fighting doonie's lake boss (whatever its name was) then perhaps our assistance until said beast is vanquished. Either is fine.

>>347352
The deal isn't for one strike-its for all future strikes, with each side that offers a consumable restocking you with said consumable each time it does strike, in addition to vending said expendable triggers to you. Just don't expect individual purchases to be cheap.

Depending on the amount of power derived from a given expendable for this, a resupply can contain between five and fifteen 'uses' worth of the expendable material.

You also misconstrued the Wizarding offer. Dorjpalam IS the Wizard you mentioned-a Wizarding Contract is basically a 'create your own practitioner skillset' Trait, such as being a fire mage, or a stone mage or what have you. It wouldn't actually make you a practitioner, as you'd be drawing power from a fragment of the Wizard, but effectively its the same thing.

And since the deal is for all future strikes, that does mean if you choose to learn as much as a human can of the goblin arts pertaining to stealth, that will be all you get for the magic strikes-no resupplies or extra lessons, all upfront payment.

Lastly-if you think you're on to something there, feel free to try it out. No guarantees that it will work remotely how you think it will.

As far as I can make out the only things stopping us from keeping the Nevernever striking us is that it'll explode us via world passsing through us, also it strips us of magic.

Somewhere here is a potential to become a null being/magic eater.(Someway other than anti-magic buff from being struck multiple times) The problem is control, if we could force the nevernever to strike around us rather than through us that would help greatly...

After that, learn how to warp the world!!!

Alright, thanks for clarifying that the prices are for all strikes... still we could negotiate things for less than.
I would try to feel out about making deals to help us becoming a true wizard.

Also, new idea... find a magical animal symbiont or sentient object (amulet, weapon, etc) that can eat them. As you feed it, it grows in power and can be bequeathed to your descendants.

My biggest problem with the straight up trades offered is that:
1. Every strike makes us lose magic / powers.
2. 13 is gonna be really bad.

We need to somehow permanently resolve it. A long term agreement where power is given and split amongst the courts in exchange to their cooperation in helping armas become a true wizard is a perment solution to an ever escalating problem. If armas has to do MORE work for them in exchange for said assistance then so be it, he offers more work.

Oh, you can also trade knowledge... has someone siphoned off power in such a way before? the first was taken off by the representatives of winter and summer. But second strike you siphoned into a building to turn it into something from past. Third into the stairway to modify it. Third gave you the power to nullify magically enforced deals... Are the courts / wizard curious about what happened so far? are they curious about what wondrous effects further strikes will have?

And imagine if you develop such a process via your studies. Where in the future those in your position could be offered a deal based on the knowledge you will acquire via this experiment.

>>347362
Uh, any of these deals are permanent solutions as far as I'm aware. In each deal the people we are approaching will have a way to intercept the strikes before they hit us, preventing damage to our personal magic.

>>347365
then i misunderstood. I thought the deals involve giving us an outlet to channel the power into after it strikes. If they are intercepting it before it strikes then its a pretty big game changer.

I'd still like to see if we can make armas into a true wizard though.

Of the offered options, I like the goblin one the best... except that I'm concerned that in the long term, it's not a large enough return. We'd need some kind of long-lasting benefit.

If we can work in permanent status as Friend to the Goblinkin everywhere, a brownie assistant, and a full overview of supernatural and particularly fae culture (i.e. getting only the information that any common goblin would know and which is thus not incredibly valuable), then I'd go for that one without hesitation.

Maybe I'm just greedy, but it seems like the training deal is just offering us something that we'll already get with time, meaning that in a year or three we'd be not much better off than we would be otherwise.


Failing that, being a quasi-wizard is an attractive prospect. Preferably we'd get a power with a great deal of utility that we could not use technology to effectively substitute for; that is, something like teleportation or force fields rather than throwing fire.

These logs are long overdue for posting, slipped my mind until now to be honest. Anyway, important information.

[18:15] <TheBeardiestBob> well
[18:15] <TheBeardiestBob> well well well
[18:15] <TheBeardiestBob> I have good new
[18:15] <TheBeardiestBob> news
[18:17] <TheBeardiestBob> I have now gotten two other people interested in running characters in the Guns for Hire setting-one is choosing to become the Texan Iroquois gunslinger (Now going by the oh-so-pleasant translated name of Big-Crazy).
[18:18] <TheBeardiestBob> And another person playing as Brandt's wife. They actively want to try playing in the setting, and I will encourage it in the following-I will be doing their
[18:19] <TheBeardiestBob> They do not, and will not, know of Armas' charms, or of Mammon's Device.
[18:19] <TheBeardiestBob> So, from now on, when I roll for enemies in thread, that means it's an actual player, so... be warned, the contest will be fiercer.
[18:43] <TheBeardiestBob> You mean, what have they learned of you? I can only tell you all they know is in character, but I told them that you were one of three seperate MC I have running in GFH, and are, from a rules standpoint, a pretty major threat.
[18:43] <TheBeardiestBob> They most certainly don't know about your rapid healing.
[18:50] <TheBeardiestBob> oh-yes, they know the three major MC's are all group staffed.
[18:51] <TheBeardiestBob> Savoy and Labombard both have IRC player groups now.
[18:51] <TheBeardiestBob> I might add, Labombard has been kicking it up a notch, fucker be insane.
[18:53] <TheBeardiestBob> He's basically been waging a one man war against the US special forces arranged against the Triads while Lo Fang's been busy trying to keep up with the Savoy character, who has been making expressways towards the Wizard Khubiliai
[18:54] <TheBeardiestBob> all of this you already knew (or can afford to know with Labombard) so telling you is not an issue-I am just giving you a reminder of what they've been up to.
[18:54] <TheBeardiestBob> Also, Savoy character hit the biggest of lottos with his bloodline power-I caution you this once.
[18:56] <TheBeardiestBob> Currently, Savoy ONLY has that-but with what he's been doing-he may end up with a second bloodline-like ability. Fuckers been taking his pre-existing high rank to move aggressively.
[18:56] <TheBeardiestBob> I am going to add other individual and MC charas as time passes (all of whome will have in-quest rolls) but be aware the main thread (since the others are IRC) is still the quest.lv one.
[18:57] <Grail> Was there some hint at sorcerery? Because if there wasn't and I'm remembering wrong I'm guessing some sort of holy paladin esque ability tied to the early mythic brotherhood the mafia claims to originate from.
[18:58] <TheBeardiestBob> Grail, there is a different assassin in the Mafia with such a power who happens to be Savoy's bro-but Savoy himself could probably end him without much issue anyway.
[18:59] <TheBeardiestBob> His power is one of those that 'rules are complicated, think through rules OH GOD WHAT THE HELL' type powers.

>>347369
>Important information
>In IRC

WHY

>>347370
As long as it gets reliably cross-posted into this thread, I don't mind. It's when it stays silently in IRC that things are bad.

>>347371
Why run the risk at all?

Why is important shit being revealed in IRC a good thing?

No one's given me a solid answer, just excuses, like "He's always done it" (He should stop) "The IRC isn't exclusive" (It wasn't mentioned either here or in the thread) "Anyone who follows Golem Quest should expect it" (Why, and for that matter, not everyone reads both)

No one has told me why it's a good thing and why he should continue revealing pertinent and important info via IRC.

I am actually on IRC... my problem with IRC is that unlike a forum, I cannot just look up what I missed. I must be actively connected at the exact time that bob says something in it. If you are offline because your computer is off then you miss it.

>>347370
Because I open a discussion thread and people don't ask questions in it-but they DO on IRC. And since I like to clarify things, I answer said questions. Maybe if something confused you, or you were curious about ______, you could... you know, ask about it, not just get angry when someone asked on a medium you don't like, at a time where you were not present to observe it?

>>347377
fair point that people don't actually ask that many questions here on the dis thread.
Its not that he is going to IRC to post information, rather people ask and he answers wherever they asked.

>>347377
The problem, Bob, is that while that's fine and dandy, sometimes things are said in IRC that I want to know that I didn't even know I wanted to ask about - or that are needed to fully grasp suggestions or actions or plans.

THere's no rolling archive for IRC, no way to look up posts, and more and more, I'm saying "Well Bob said X in IRC, so that's why I'm suggesting this" and for someone who, say, just wants to read the threads to stay caught up, that's a real fucking disappointment.

>>347379
>And more and more, I'm seeing

It's four AM.

>>347379
Yes there is, it's called logs. Ask ManofTroy for them.
>>347378
>he answers wherever they asked.
HAHAHAHA NO. He answers when he feels like answering.

>>347382
The two are not mutually exclusive.

>>347382
>Reading through day's worth of logs when shit could just be posted here instead of there, or not at all

More excuses, yay~!

When DungeonCrawler got questions about his setting, he posted codexes in his discussion thread. That's what you're supposed to do, put it all in a place where you're certain everyone who reads the quest will see it. Not some of them. Not most of them. All of them. To do otherwise is to exclude some of your readership from information for no reason other than simple lazyness, on the part of you, the author.

Several people in #Rubyquest named this as a reason they aren't reading anymore, and have remained silent on the matter because they felt "Bob wouldn't listen".

18:58TheBeardiestBobDorian Gray does exist in the setting-and unlike the book one, he was a bit smarter than the common lore (which he helped author and orchestrate), and had a mortal painter paint over his Devil painting several hundred years ago, and it is now the true face of any one of thousands of famous portraits. The one in the hideyhole in his mansion? A replica.
18:59TheBeardiestBobThis Dorian Gray, in addition to being completely unkillable thanks to a deal with a very, VERY high ranking devil, can literally be blown away to the atom and still immediately come back into existence in his old place. Think faster-than-Bang healing, but with no boosting property-just return to default.
18:59TheBeardiestBobNo amount of firepower can overcome his unkillability, not a thousand GAU 8s, not a nuke, nothing, he will get back up.
19:01TheBeardiestBobAnd thanks to being old, smart enough to work his major deal with a Devil, he, while still a vanilla human in physical ability, is a VERY versatile and skilled practicioner-think Wizard light, in that he doesn't have massive gaping holes in his magic use like most practicioners, but not the super oh god power.
19:03TheBeardiestBobHe wasn't originally a practitioner-but enough suffusion of Hellish power over CENTURIES let him become a more potent than average magic user-while having a Devil Contract, which is comparably potent to a Bloodline ability.
19:03TheBeardiestBobAnd yes, you can't use the knowledge in game, but he did spend some time as Oscar Wilde, so he could author said false tale.
19:06TheBeardiestBobSo, I may note, that while Dorian the NPC in the quest is a Devil Contract/Practitioner, the Savoy MC is getting ever closer on getting a Wizardly Contract to complement his insanely powerful bloodline.
19:06TheBeardiestBobso soon there will be TWO hybrids you know of.

21:53TheBeardiestBobAnyway, there is a certain group that commandeered the Steyr ACR patent after it got nixxed-and the H&K G11, as well as those of MB associates gyrojet weaponry. They may not have gauss-bullpups, but between excellent muzzle velocity followed by ACCELERATION at twenty feet-well, you can auto-fire rounds that would have far too much recoil otherwise
21:54TheBeardiestBobComplete with the real beauty, incendiary-tipped flechette rounds that are each individually gyrojet and drill-tipped, to embed the fire inside of even armored targets. It is a 60mm underslung cluster of sixty four flechette needles, attached to the above bullpup of doom.
21:54TheBeardiestBobSo, the people that use the highest velocity infantry firearms in the world? Titan Corporation. The specific subset of said PMC that uses these guns: The Titan's Reapers. You basically have to think slogging through a war by day and pulling spec ops at night is /boring/ for them to consider you for being a Reaper.
21:54TheBeardiestBobAnd one final thing about these wonderful guns and the experts that use them-they come with inbuilt self-destruct devices that are keyed to their owner's heart and proximity-heart stops, or gets too far away, all the important mechanisms get some thermite treatment. Same if you try to fiddle with them.

>>347372
Shot I don't see why you are the one making half of these complaints. For one you can't even keep half the quest information straight yourself. You constantly complain about not knowing things in the IRC when you're there, but the information you were whining about is usually stuff that is available in the main thread or the discussion thread. And you know for a damn fact the IRC isn't exclusive and it has been posted in the main thread as of a few days ago in response to your complaints then. Those same complaints I will remind you shouldn't have come from you in the first place since you already knew how to access it, but instead of posting it for everyone you whined about the fact that it wasn't being posted until someone did it for you. What kind of person sees a problem they can fix without any effort on their part, but instead of doing so they put their efforts towards screaming and hollering about the problems existence? And that same person nearly got banned from the wiki for trying to edit it in so that everyone could see it there.

>>347388
>And that same person nearly got banned from the wiki for trying to edit it in so that everyone could see it there.

What.
I've barely even touched the wiki.

And "easily fixed" means "Staying on the IRC all day every day in case something might possibly be said which I will need in order to post". Which, frankly, is not "easily". "Easily" would be seeing the information posted by Bob himself, in his own thread, where everyone is guaranteed to read it, and thus there are no problems. I haven't been on IRC for the past few days, and already, there's new shit I've missed, probably, that likely won't get posted, that will be used for suggestions.

It's already happened a few times both here and in GQ. Between the "The gates are eating our magic" and "Some asshole stole all our shit, let me tell you in IRC only who did it" I'm getting kind of tired of it, and the fact that no one posted either of those before they posted their suggestions then clarified "oh, there was hints (read: small mentions of something that could never have been pieced together that way) but this was explicitly said in an internet chat room with the author" really ticked me off.

The fact that this was put forth as a problem by several other people in IRC who tried to read these quests but were put off from it due to it, and their reluctance to say anything because it would mean jack shit, and that you're proving them right, saddens me deeply.

>>347389
The last paragraph can not have been that hard to parse that you thought it was entirely about you.

The same person that posted up the IRC location in the thread also put it up in the Wiki, nearly got banned from the wiki for it, but sorted some things out and the IRC location is now in two places, the thread and the Wiki.

Which, btw, is here: http://quest.lv/wiki/Gun_for_Hire_Quest - don't know why it's Gun instead of Guns

>>347389
>And that same person nearly got banned from the wiki for trying to edit it in so that everyone could see it there.
That was me fuckhead.
You're welcome.

>>347389
>I've barely even touched the wiki.
Not talking about you, I'm talking about the person who posted the links, which again for clarification, was not you.

>And "easily fixed" means "Staying on the IRC all day every day in case something might possibly be said which I will need in order to post". Which, frankly, is not "easily". "Easily" would be seeing the information posted by Bob himself, in his own thread, where everyone is guaranteed to read it, and thus there are no problems. I haven't been on IRC for the past few days, and already, there's new shit I've missed, probably, that likely won't get posted, that will be used for suggestions.

You misread en-fucking-tirely. I said the problem you were whining about was that the link to the chat itself was not being posted anywhere and thus the chat is a 'super special club'. So the problem I was referring to from then on was that problem, a problem which could have been fixed by you by POSTING THE LINK, something that is as simple as a quick copy and paste. You however, did not, and instead of fixing said problem, bitch about it. You have no desire to see these things fixed, you just have a desire to make yourself a nuisance.

>>347396
"Providing a link to the IRC" is not "Making certain that all the information is posted in a place where everyone can read it" because not everyone who knows about the IRC is there.

>>347397
You aren't even reading what I'm typing are you? If you are you're reading comprehension comes into question because at no point did I even come close to implying those are the same things. I am not targeting that argument you just made, I am targeting one of the ones you made that I linked to originally. Though while we're on that post since you can't seem to stop thinking I'm referring to it, Bob isn't the lazy one, you are. As demonstrated by the instance I keep quoting, you would rather cling to your arguments and whine rather than clicking a couple damn buttons.

Posting data author gave out in IRC to the wiki is a bannable offense? How odd...

>>347400
Squeegy-MobileOne of them went in #tozol to bitch loudly about how LP undid his changes to the Guns for Hire page because he removed the template, then railed against templates in general
14:42Shot___Oh, the guy who 'nearly got banned'
14:43Shot___Just to put in the IRC channel
14:43Squeegy-MobileLP told him not to vandalize the templates or he'd ban him.
14:43Squeegy-MobileIn the edit reason
14:43Squeegy-MobileSo he came on IRC
14:43Squeegy-MobileDid a /whois on Phil, and came in #tozol to bitch at him
14:44Squeegy-MobileHe said templates were annoying and too limited
14:44Squeegy-MobileHe was like "30 quest threads and 5 disc threads? That's a limit!"
14:44Anonymageanyway I'm not even going to bother saying anything in the GFH dis thread
14:45AnonymageI brought it up back when the thing with senth happened
14:45Squeegy-MobilePhil wasn't even there
14:45Squeegy-MobileSo he was sperging out at everyone else
14:45AnonymageI went to the IRC and said "wait, what the fuck why are you guys screaming for this character's blood" and they were like "he took all our money and he's also Jak Stryfe" and I was like "what"
14:45Anonymage"oh it came up in IRC here look at the log"
14:46Squeegy-MobileI asked him why he didn't PM and he said he wanted to solve the issue and Phil was afk
14:46Anonymage"or maybe post this log to the discussion thread"

>>347398
Are you saying he's lazier than Bob because he didn't post a link to the IRC channel in this thread?

Because you haven't posted it either. Here, let me post it.

irc://irc.rizon.net/golemquest

>>347409
In this thread? No, in the main thread, where he began this tirade about it being a secret location. But yes, I think it's fair to assume he is lazier than Bob seeing as how the effort for the one task he could have done is significantly less than for the task he is proposing, that and that Bob is willing to look through two separate mediums to answer questions.

I do enjoy the subtle jab your trying to give me by implying I'm lazy for not posting it here, but guess what? I'm not the one complaining about it, I don't give a damn if it got posted anywhere in the first place. What I'm doing is complaining about the complaining and if there was an easy solution to get rid of it that I could take, please tell me, because I'll happily accept being called on hypocrisy if you had decent reasoning. That and I've been the one spoon feeding you people information this whole time.

>You have no desire to see these things fixed, you just have a desire to make yourself a nuisance.

Thanks Grail, you just validated every reason I have to think that the bobquest crowd are intolerable shitstains.

Btw: I'm one of those people shot was talking about who said that it was pointless to bring this up.

>>347418
14:56 Anonymage [14::52:55] Grail: Cool
14:56 Anonymage [14::53:00] Grail: That was fun
14:56 Anonymage [14::53:05] Grail: Got shot to leave both channels
14:56 Anonymage [14::53:18] ManAsleep: How did we do that?
14:56 Anonymage [14::53:28] Grail: Uh I don't know someone link Troy a chat log
14:56 Anonymage [14::53:50] Grail: I'd suggest everyone pulls out too. Unless you really want to fuck with rubyquest as a whole
14:56 Anonymage [14::54:02] Grail: I just went for a precision strike on Shot

And chasing people across IRC channels just to annoy them and shit up the place, what the hell, man. Before this, I thought you were an alright guy.

>>347420

Grail is just as big an ass as I am, it's just that instead of insulting shitty art in general he picks on and bullies specific people.

>>347417
>>347418
>>347420
I find it amazing that you assume things about a group of people simply because a single one decides to take enjoyment in antagonizing others. It seems to me you're using our most dickish and rude member to give yourself an excuse to dislike us more than you did without knowing us, and refusing to get to know us using him as an example. This is evidenced multiple times in chat as several GQ/GfH readers who, despite being ridiculed and threatened (most notably by Squeegy) were extremely polite and civil.

While I am a good friend of Grail, I am not defending him here. I absolutely refuse to condone his actions, as they were wildly inappropriate. However, the fault is just as much yours as it is his. You should all feel ashamed of yourselves.

>>347422
I...begrudgingly accept that my actions were rash and I perhaps could have handled that in a better way. I am not sorry for what I said, but perhaps in the way that I went about it and if I caused anyone else besides who I was having words with a problem. I should have went to him specifically, but then with his penchant to post logs I doubt it would be any more contained than it is now. Not that I came in with the desire to say anything to him at all, merely to observe what he was saying about the channel, as others were noting him to have been stirring up things for days now. Needless to say the reaction we all received for merely coming in to see things incited a bit of a reaction, which as I said could have been handled better.

>>347422

>However, the fault is just as much yours as it is his.

Sorry shitstain, but not a goddamn bit of this is my fault. I'm the one who brought up 'the way that bob runs his quests, where he rewards players for being the guy who attacks another player character because he heard that character's player tell the DM he was taking something from the dude's bag while he slept, was really off-putting. It's terrible storytelling and it means that when you try to read the thread to catch up on a quest it looks like shit just comes completely out of nowhere, and -that guy- is always the shittiest guy in a gaming group.'

I also told shot not to bother bringing it up because, even though you're all -that guy-, you like being -that guy- and bob likes running games for -that guy- and the lot of you are free to do it.

None of this shit is my fault to any degree at all. Criticism (and this IS criticism, and even completely constructive criticism at that) is not wicked. I am not ashamed at all.

>>347426

>Needless to say the reaction we all received for merely coming in to see things incited a bit of a reaction, which as I said could have been handled better.

14:56 Anonymage [14::53:50] Grail: I'd suggest everyone pulls out too. Unless you really want to fuck with rubyquest as a whole
14:56 Anonymage [14::54:02] Grail: I just went for a precision strike on Shot

So now you're -that guy- AND a bad liar. Fantastic.

>>347431
>the way that bob runs his quests, where he rewards players for being the guy who attacks another player character because he heard that character's player tell the DM he was taking something from the dude's bag while he slept

Eh, I disagree with this. The one time something comparable to that happened was when a drunk friend of Bob's convinced a drunk Bob to hand out information on IRC. Which was very shocking because I hadn't joined the IRC when this happened. Everything else is mainly discussing speculation and and maybe confirming something that we'd find out with some waste of time legwork in quest so we can bicker about it before the update. It's almost always stuff we will find out before it becomes relevant, or would find out if we had the character check something as opposed to just asking Bob in IRC(We as players should probably start doing that). That or something that would take no effort from the character but take several updates of information gathering to convey. All we're getting to do is plan ahead a bit really.

For instance, in this quest right now, we're being offered a deal for trading something major away. There are several people we could go to and see what we could get, but going there and haggling with each one before we choose one? Sort of a waste of time. So we get a general idea of what each one is offering, so we don't need to waste weeks worth of updates on heading to each one. That information is in this post by the way. >>347336

I'll admit that handing out information on IRC probably makes it a bit harder for people to follow, but frankly, to me it's a major part of the quest. I liked reading and posting in GQ before, though it did get a little frustrating at times, but now the most enjoyable part of the quest is discussing and arguing about it in IRC. Without Bob giving us fodder for that, it'd die down pretty quick.

>So now you're -that guy- AND a bad liar. Fantastic.

Grail wasn't really lying about that. Sure, he went over there to fuck with Shot. I only went to see what was being said about us though. Insufferable Mystic was already there and just let us know we were being bitched about, and to my knowledge didn't try and fuck with anyone. And the reaction those who went to see what was up got? We're all worthless fucktards who should go die in a fire. Seriously, you don't think popping into a channel and the first thing you see is being told that isn't likely to get a reaction out of somebody? Grouping us all together when you were arguing with an individual escalated things. You get in a fight with a black dude and start throwing about racial slurs and anyone part of that group who didn't care before will start to. That's just how things work.

>>347417
Main thread? This is the main thread for guns for hire.

>>347438
No, this is discussion. He means it was posted in the quest thread, where the "This is bullshit" started.

Bob!t/UKid4z5s 2011/06/09(Thu)10:17 No. 37641 ID: a76809
File 130763987510.jpg - (56.42KB , 800x646 , Camella New Sidearm.jpg )

So, since it's clear that information needs to start being recorded more concretely, I'll do what I can with my time to provide more for you guys-so you have less you need to plug in/find yourselves.


It hasn't come up in quest and is in no way a big deal, but Camella ALSO got exceptionally drunk Friday night, and won a classic-build Franchi double-barreled shotgun, over-under design, sawn-off. In said drunken impromptu gambling, she also won several hundred lira.


So, she has a 12gauge 2-shot, and a couple hundred extra bucks from that event. Not a big thing, but it happened, and rather than make note of it in IRC, I'll post it here.


...Would REALLY help make sure information is posted here if people ask questions about things so I know what people need to know. If I tried to do-all world details or some such, I wouldn't know where to start.


So... questions?

>>347441
Aside from the Mafia, Triads, and Germans, what significant human-centric underworld groups are there in Istanbul? There seem to be a curious absence of native Turkish groups thus far.

How common are Bloodlines? Are we talking every tenth person in the setting is running about with a bit of magic curled up inside them, or every ten thousandth? How do Bloodlines come into existence in the first place?

Can normal people learn magic? That is, almost all the supernatural stuff that we see seems to be rooted in lineage, or granted by someone or something already steeped in supernatural power. The only exception I can think of- and I don't even know if it is and exception- is Go Ping, who seemed to be studying to gradually learn magic... except that he learned very quickly from Lo Fang, so that could fall under endowment too, or he could be using some Chinese bloodline power. So what are the mechanics of this? Or I suppose more broadly, what are the basic routes to magic power for a human in the Gun for Hire world?

>>347443
>Can normal people learn magic?

Expanding on this - What can normal people without a bloodline or ties to fey courts manage on their own? What sort of supernatural things be accessed merely by hard work?

Further, are there any sort of mercenary companies, PMCs, etc, that specialize in supernatural things?

Is there a way to mass-produce +1 rifles?

Besides Mafia, Triads and Germans, there is an Indian drug cartel, and two separate Turkish groups-one predominately based on heroin smuggling to the rest of Europe with Kurdish connections, the other working in massive amounts of arms dealing. There is a Russian presence, but it is not of considerable size-there is also a small local Yakuza presence, insofar as members are here, but they don't really do anything.

If I had to ballpark bloodlines, its about one in a thousnd, to get any kind of bloodline. Bloodlines come into existence by inheriting them from someone with either an active bloodline or whose bloodline was inactive-think recessive trait.

Normal people learning magic... kinda hard to answer. Normal people kind of have the superpower lottery-if you are joe shmo and a Gate opens in you, yes you can die-but you have okay odds of becoming a Wizard instead. So normal people make the most powerful casters-when they don't explode. As to normal magic levels, practitioner stuff-not on their own, they'd need to get the power from some other source to work it.

More broadly, the route to learning magic, if not already a practitioner or a power lotto wizard winner, is to get those WITH power to be willing to invest some of said power into you.

>>347444
What magical things can you find, barring stumbling over it or having connections to exploit...hm. Well, there are some meditative martial styles that can lead to actually percieving one's soul, and moving it around a bit to tweak one's performance-focus all your durability to a single point to stop a knife, or make a single blow have every bit of strength in your body behind it. But outside of having a bloodling, being a wizard or making some contracts.... not really possible to just learn magic on your own.

There is Titan Corporation, a US based PMC that has a division of private special forces that world governments hire when their own conventional troops prove insufficient to a supernatural threat. Not used that much in the US because of AORB (those with the suits up above) but reasonably common in Europe, Africa and Asia. Beyond them-no, since it takes considerable resources to be able to insure mission success against all the different creepy crawlies about.

Mass-produce.... yes, if you had SHITTONS of supplies of bones from magically charged animals, and their blood to quench metal in-then yes. Not so much for imbuing metal or wood the conventional way, so you'd have to 'steal' supernatural energy if you wanted to do any sort of mass-production.



Any more questions?

Our new AA-12 needs an awesome name.

Speaking of it - is it like a magical bow in DnD, n that it imbues the ammunition once fired? In other words, would it be wise to load it with incendiaries and have fire that doesn't allow regen?

Grails about to offer up a suggestion for trading in Mammon's device for the werewolf deal, and getting a replacement for it at the sametime. Bob informed us of this possibility. Figured I'd let everyone out of IRC know that.

>>347460
yes, it imbues ammunition when fired-so soaking it in something would not 'taint' said fluid with the weapon's magics.

What were those mostly-invisible things that we fought on the stairway to Hell? I've been adding a list of known supernatural creatures to the wiki (admittedly, most of them are things we've only heard about) and they need a label.


Speaking of things that need labels, the owner of the restaurant was referenced as "the Old One" when we were there, and by no other name. However, I can't call him that because Laetissi uses the same phrase later to refer to the creator of Mammon's Device, presumably Mammon, which demonstrates fairly conclusively to me that "Old One" is a class of being, possibly everything past a certain threshold of age and power. What should we call the restaurateur?

>>347485
Putting in a vote for the Old Vampire.

>>347485
Things in the stairwell, what their name is... eh, maybe this can clear that up-think of those things in the stairwell as the stairwell's anti-intruder defense mechanism-very specialized white blood, basically. They aren't separate entities, but fractions of the stairwell whole.

Since the restaurant owner is a dragon old enough to remember the dinosaurs (and miss those DELICIOUS Brontosaurs) and so old as to predate names.... why not just call him The Owner? Not like he cares for getting off his ass and doing things OUTSIDE of his restaurant, where while he may not get dinosaur meat by GOD he'll have whatever other food tickles his fancy.

i think we should see about trading the mammon device + memories to the goblins.

Bob said in IRC that Sometimes Merchant's halo is something he won from an angel. Also, based on some questions asked it seems like he's not affiliated with the Seelie or Unseelie courts, and quite possibly neither Winter or Summer either.

>>347489
>They aren't separate entities, but fractions of the stairwell whole.
Well, then, should I be classing the stairwell as the entity? Just call it "The Stairwell"?

>The Owner
Will do.

>>347493
The Stairwell is a remixed SCP item.

>>347492
My knowledge of the Dresden Files told me that goblins were wyldfae with their own agenda from day one. Surely knowledge from a solidly reputable source like that would never betray me.

>>347494
Which means what in terms of wiki classification, aside from that its entry should probably have a note to that effect in it?

For the werewolf deal, whilst I don't like Rage or Hunger, Consumption and Absorbtion might be nice. We could get it bound into a set of very hard, very sharp ceramic teeth which we can pay off a dentist to replace our own.

We shouldn't do this until we have a more powerful soul though.

can someone specify, in bullet points, why we would sell mammon device to werewolves instead of goblins?

I don't like any of the werewolf options. I have no interest in gaining power at the cost of control, which is ultimately what they all boil down to as I understand them.

While I am interested in opening relations with the weres because they're obviously a powerful faction, the options for what they can provide us with thus far do not appeal to me.

>>347494
Not so much, anymore-Honestly, I'd classify it as.... hm. The easiest comparison would be to think of this 'Stairwell' as being a very specialized Deep Spawn for Mammon, ala Mordre. As to a name... Mammon's Stairwell, why not.

>>347503
>>347501

Right, I'm not really sure of the specifics but.. here it goes...

1: Transformation/More durability, Currently Armas is better than a human but not that great on the toughness front.
2: It doesn't have to be a Rage spirit, it can be something other than BERSERK.
3: Apparently the deal is what we make of it.

So basically we get a powerful spirit, to boost our dangerousness, One thing is that we can have a transformation, but really it is customizable, I don't think any of us have really explained this well.

Bob could, but currently he is in hospital, after food poisoning and resulting stomach pumping.

In the light of recent dissatisfaction I went through the logs, copied and edited the most interesting parts and compiled them into a single document for everybody to see.
Conveniently separated into chunks for easier and more pleasant reading.

http://pastebin.com/RgjvTHHU
http://www.mediafire.com/?u6z0bdwwrxhdui9



THANK ME, YOU WHINY, UNGRATEFUL DICKHEADS!
I SPENT HOURS DOING THIS BULLSHIT JUST SO THAT YOU FUCKS DON'T HAVE TO SPEND AN OUNCE OF EFFORT YOURSELF!
ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS TO LOG INTO THE CHANNEL AND IDLE THERE, NOT A FUCKING SOUL FORCES YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CONVERSATIONS OR READ THEM ENTIRELY!
JUST FUCKING USE 'SEARCH' FUNCTION FOR BOB'S POSTS AND READ THEM!
STOP SUCKING A BOATLOAD OF DICKS, GET UP YOUR LAZY ASSES AND DO SOMETHING FOR ONCE!

>>347508
>spending hours on something nobody asked for or needed
>giving everybody shit
>asking for those same people's thanks
Stalker out of here get

ok, the trade goblins for gold discussion is getting out of hand so I figure we move it to questdis.

>>/quest/311666

Seems like there is strong opposition so lets discussion the issues here.


>>/quest/311691
>You've forgotten...
I haven't forgotten, but:
1. We can at least ask.
2. You are saying that goblins LOVE gold but HATE paper money. Yet claim that they will hate on us for asking for either? That makes no sense.
3. You are suggesting that they will try to shaft us, they dealt with us fairly thus far and we have many deals going on.
4. By your own admission script money is not the same as precious metals (they despise one and respect the other)... they are already giving us rare meats and spices I am just suggesting something more fungible... although we COULD just keep asking for more varied types of meats and just sell those...

Actually fuck, call the triads and ask them how much they pay for the various kinds of meats we have. Those are super rare and probably worth MORE Then gold...

>>347512
I have not claimed that they will hate us, just that the price will be higher than we wish it to be. That is not shafting us, it's merely reflecting their value system- but is nevertheless unfavorable.

I suspect that the reason they value precious metals is because of how time works for them. Recall that time in the nevernever flows very differently- they can simply plant their spices and let them grow up in subjective instants, making them essentially an infinite resource. Similarly with many types of creature- anything they can treat as livestock or a hunting animal, they have an effectively infinite supply of just by letting their ecosystem run itself. But metals do not grow or renew themselves, so they have only a finite supply of it- making its value far, far greater.

This does mean that there is an exploitable market gap by selling their renewables in the real world, but I do not think that we are currently in a position to set ourselves up as middleman. My guess would be that the market niche for supernatural foods is already well known to those who deal in the supernatural, and exploited by them; until we are both better situated and able to reliably deal in larger quantities, we should not make an attempt to penetrate that market. The quantities that we're dealing in at the moment aren't even large enough to fully replace Armas' groceries.

>>347513
>The quantities that we're dealing in at the moment aren't even large enough to fully replace Armas' groceries.

I am pretty sure we were explicitly told we now have enough magic meats and spices coming each week to fully sustain us... aka we are in the point where it replaces our groceries entirely.

>>347508
Holy jesus fuck on a stick, calm the hell down. Calling us names and ASKING for gratitude will get you none.

>>347508
Hey look what I found in that

#
[02:15] <@TheBeardiestBob> So-pretty soon, I predict a fight involving Olga, Big Crazy, Savoy, a Vampire-and Armas/Camella
#
[02:15] <@TheBeardiestBob> 'Twill be cool
#
[02:16] <Grail> Will the vampire have the ghoul that acts like Don King?
#
[02:16] <Guile> well, attending church just moved up the list
#
[02:16] <@TheBeardiestBob> Nope, it'll just be one of those smug ones that could twist Brandt into a pretzel, that's all
#
[02:17] <Grail> So Olga and Crazy are together, Vamps and Savoy pairing up?
#
[02:17] <Guile> there are NOT smug vampires?
#
[02:17] <Grail> The dead ones
#
[02:17] <Guile> also, Savoy doesnt really need allies
#
[02:21] <Grail> Wonder if it's the vampire we heard about before
#
[02:21] <Grail> What was his name, Gunther?
#
[02:25] <@TheBeardiestBob> Savoy and Vamp are kiiiiinnda on the same side, but not really
#
[02:25] <@TheBeardiestBob> if their 'team' is the winner of the three-way only one of them will be leaving this, one way or another.
#
[02:25] <@TheBeardiestBob> Savoy can't leave the vamp alive after his business
#
[02:26] <@TheBeardiestBob> vamp can't let Savoy go because this is his chance to get DELICIOUS AWAKENED ROYAL BLOOD OM NOM NOM
#
[02:27] <@TheBeardiestBob> No, this is not Hans Gunther


That vampire description sounds damned familiar.

Thinking about martial arts training. After we've learned what we can from Ito about jukenjitsu and the manipulation of energy through the chakras, we should ask the goblins if they can add training in the use of the glaive to what they will teach us (the sword bayonet is used a lot like a glaive). In return, we will arrange for them to be taught modern martial arts or teach it ourselves.

We should also ask Ito if he's interested in teaching the some people from the same group who taught Armas the footwork. We'll pay him his going rate to do it, plus extra for the inconvenience of having to do it in private.

We'll then charge the goblins hours of training time, and pay Ito in dollars or lira. SM should be happy with that, as the deal with him for training is similar, the goblins who are training are not the ones who are teaching.

When we can afford it, we might see if we can set Camella up with a similar deal, as she needs to earn a living, but we'll need to get some money first. Hopefully after we hit Smets place we can sell some stuff.

you know, when I heard that savoy was defeated by fang I assumed savoy was KILLED.
But all this OOC knowledge suggests that he survived, merely losing the battle, and by abusing his bloodline ability is about to get much much much more powerful.

Savoy lost an arm in the attack. Last I heard, Fang was using it to stamp signatures. He's be pursuing demon and wizard contracts. And also something about getting a demon arm to replace his old one.

  >>347544
>And also something about getting a demon arm to replace his old one.

In the event of InsufferableMystic 2011/06/11(Sat)19:43 No. 37747 ID: 856690
File 130784662729.png - (55.43KB , 400x400 , Armasfacepalm.png )

This picture is in the event of things going a badly, like being betrayed. I am putting it here cause i may not be able to post it at the relvant juncture

It is Armas.
Facepalming.

What of supernatural fruits and vegetables?

>>347553
lets get some... magic salad here we come!

Heads up, in IRC, using only the information in the logs posted >>347508, we put together that Havoc and Locke are Olga and Big Crazy. We know there's three way shitstorm with Savoy and a Vampire who wants his delicious awakened royal blood(this is smets), Big Crazy and Olga(Locke and Havoc), and us and Camella. Assuming Olga has either had plastic surgery or some movie make-up magic done to hide who she is, which is why Armas noticed something wrong with her face during their first meeting.

Gonna go ahead and note, this isn't a situation of something big being given away on IRC, it's the people on IRC doing some brainmeat thinking and coming up with what's happening. Preparing for it is a bit meta, but so far every job we've had where the supernatural came up has screwed us over majorly, so I think Armas would be paranoid.

we should make a deal with the goblins such that we will teach them modern weaponry in the nevernever.

We could "instantly" (in the real world) gain all the hours we ever could from them.

The ability to teleport anywhere on earth would be awesome beyond belief. Reconnect with waitiri, escape from a bad fight, hunt down an opponent, save a ton of time... teleportation is one of the most powerful and awesome things ever. We should ask the goblins what methods there are to teleport and which can they sell us.

>>347492
Ah, I just assumed all goblins in this setting have a halo of fire, and from that assumed they are summer court.
This changes things.

I wonder- if the actual Locke and Havoc died two weeks ago... did they have friends who would be interested in their killers? Perhaps enough for a bounty for their kill or capture?

Figured I'd throw out IRC information for this encounter. Smets can move in sunlight because the house is warded up. Short of blowing up the house, nothing we can do about that. Camella is fighting Olga(Havoc), who is fighting ghoul-ed up security forces, who is fighting Camella.

And more IRC information, but this is kind of old. Might be in the chat log dump. Camella when underground ran across a couple feral vampires. She ripped one's throat out with her teeth, and the other shit it's pants and fled. So she can take care of herself.

Hey are the amulets one-use items or do they recharge given time?

Question for Bob:
If we asked the Sometimes Merchant to sell us some luck (good luck, specifically), would he be able to? If so, what form would it take, how effective could it be, and where does that fall in the Crazy Goblin Pricing Scheme (TM)?

>>347598
Based upon our conversations with Sometimes Merchant, they're one-use. I'm not sure that the goblins even sell permanent ones, presumably because they're just that much harder to make.

And considering that we already owe the goblins three mercenary jobs for the first two, I shudder to think what we'd have to pay for a permanent one if they do sell those.

>>347597
The update on Camella and info on the house is appreciated. I think all of us were already pretty sure Camella was a hardcore badass, though.

For the future.

Next time we go on a job we should bring along belts of AA-12 bullets.

As this video shows, a man much less destrous or motivated than Armas can reload the drum in about 35 seconds:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/299432/aa12_demo/

He should be able to manage 20 secs, which he should be able to find on the job given his stealth.

Also, in preparation for the next mission, you want to buy the AA-12 a top quality suppressor. They're illegal in Turkey, but, as it happens, in Finland the trade is completely unrestricted. You should be making a trip home at some point anyway. If not, see if a more dubious contact can acquire one for you. In the long run, when you afford to, it might be nice to get the goblins to upgrade the suppressor to make the gun truly silent, starting with a good suppressor should make that cheaper.

How is Camella doing? Is she still alive?

>>347508
Thank you.

When this whole sequence is over, can we get commentary on it from each of the other players involved? Preferably from both their perspective and their characters'. I have to wonder what the heck everyone else is thinking...

Anonymous 2011/06/16(Thu)20:31 No. 38086 ID: d3dfb8
File 130828148742.png - (199.93KB , 392x670 , 1306447525945.png )

>>347854
Fuck you we'll find out when we find out.

>>347884
mfw all of this smets business

I love the fact that Armus and Camella, two of the weakest PCs in this quest, just totally wrecked the shit out of everyone else. (actually how powerful was Olga, comparatively?)

>>347973
Both Armas and Camella are pretty badass and have highly competitive skillsets. Whether they're the weakest PCs, I'm not sure, but neither of them are by any means small fry.

How the other PCs see them would be interesting to know, if Bob gets around to telling us at some point. The spoilered bit recently in the quest thread was as staggeringly uninformative as it was doubtless meant to be, but perhaps now that the action-packed portion of that sequence is presumably over more information will be available.

I meant from a magical abilities standpoint. I mean Armus probably has the most diverse magical armory at this point in time. By the way, you know what Armus needs to buy later? A gasmask, some teargas grenades, and some thermal goggles. Actually we could just use the thermal scope on the Matebas to see thru smoke.

I still can't believe armas shot off savoy's balls.

>>347973
Olga was one level above Armas. If Armas did effectively take a level since his stealth training than she was one level above both us and Camella, but it's more likely that we didn't and she was at about equal level with Camella.

>>347973
Olga was one level above Armas. If Armas did effectively take a level since his stealth training then she was one level above both us and Camella, but it's more likely that we didn't and she was at about equal level with Camella.

Olga was out classed in that battle thou. Olga was a sniper. Camella is a monster in CQC. Am assuming they were relatively close to each other when Olga tried to shoot Armus in the head.

>>347978
Shit, I forgot about that. Maybe we should give that tidbit to Sometimes Merchant for free. He'll laugh his ass off.

DO IT!

AlratanMobile: Why does the bullet need enchanting god silencing
AlratanMobile: *for
AlratanMobile: As the round goes supersonic inside the barrel
AlratanMobile: And the sonic boom only happens when you go past the speed of sound
AlratanMobile: Not continually during flight
TheBeardiestBob: the issue is because the gun would be preventing that moment of going supersonic from being heard-so the sonic boom doesn't happen, despite the bullet going at a speed where it should have made that. So, once out of the magic's effects, it does what any object going past the speed of sound does-makes a sonic boom
TheBeardiestBob: don't know if I phrased that properly, did that make sense?
01:23
AlratanMobile: Err, not really, but it's magic
AlratanMobile: The sonic boom happens when an object outruns the sound of it's own passage
TheBeardiestBob: Think of sound like any kind of data-you can move it or change it, but not outright destroy it-so, eventually the magic's ability to prevent it from happening no longer applies-the conditions to trigger the sonic boom are still met-so it occurs, just later than it should
TheBeardiestBob: Right, but magic fucks with physics by not letting the sonic boom occur at that point. To my knowledge, we have no way to even replicate such a scenario in real life.
AlratanMobile: Well, we can theoretically do funny things with wave cancellation
AlratanMobile: To minimise them
01:27
AlratanMobile: For example, in the extreme case, if I fire a gun in a box made of sound deadening foam
TheBeardiestBob: I'm sorry, let me be less vague-we can't replicate that in an open air environment, is that not correct
AlratanMobile: The bullet would emerge from the box, but the sound wouldn't
AlratanMobile: My suggestion is to make the gun a magic sound cancelling box
AlratanMobile: That sound waves can't pass through
AlratanMobile: But bullets can
AlratanMobile: Don't prevent the sonic boom
TheBeardiestBob: You would need some physics-based mechanics to provide to whoever you want to do the customizing-as most supernaturals do not approach things from the perspective of reality, but the nevernever.
AlratanMobile: I can do that
TheBeardiestBob: But presuming that-yes, it could be done
AlratanMobile: Would either be based on creating the anti-sound to the sonic boom
TheBeardiestBob: I would also recommend some sort of impact energy amplifying charm, to give real meaning to the term 'stopping power'
TheBeardiestBob: Shoot someone
TheBeardiestBob: wonky magic force multiplication on impact
TheBeardiestBob: ITS LIKE I HAVE THE BLOODY MESS PERK!
01:30
TheBeardiestBob: Then call the gun-The Tenderizer
AlratanMobile: I was actually going in a slightly different angle that added up to the same
TheBeardiestBob: that being?
AlratanMobile: Improved recoil handling
AlratanMobile: And a magically reinforced breech
AlratanMobile: So that you can use more powerful explosives in the shells
AlratanMobile: To propel them harder in a completely natural way
TheBeardiestBob: Would require hand-loading every single twelve gauge if you want that extra oomph-but sure, that is a viable means of achieving it.
01:34
AlratanMobile: Or teach the goblins how to hand load special bullets
AlratanMobile: And buy a life times supply
AlratanMobile: On shells, I wrote up a little idea
AlratanMobile: So, I was thinking of how to make best use of the AA-12, and how the MD's bullets were made from needles used in lethal injections, so I thought of sabotted flechette rounds. The SCMITR (sic) design seems to be the most effective. Whilst looking into flechettes, I discovered that they were used as delivery channels for chemical weapons, so, if we can buy and supernatural poisons from the goblins, we should have them designed with little bits to hold them. If the goblins can get basilisk blood, then basilisk venom should be possible.
AlratanMobile: That can be combined with the more powerful explosives
TheBeardiestBob: A thought
TheBeardiestBob: but
AlratanMobile: And maybe even the bottomless magazine I suggested in the thread
AlratanMobile: Go on
01:37
TheBeardiestBob: wooden slug around a silver needle-tipped core filled with whatever poison cocktail you want, also soaked in holy oil. So, it has holy stuff for fucking up demons, wood for fucking up vampires, silver for fucking up werebeasts, poison for... whatever, and not just fire, but HOLY fire.
TheBeardiestBob: The list of things this ammunition would NOT be able to hurt would be very short
TheBeardiestBob: maybe half silver jacket the wooden slug so that the increased firing energy of the handload does not outright shatter it....
AlratanMobile: That works for specialties
AlratanMobile: And makes good slugs
AlratanMobile: But we're loosing the spray advantage of a shotgun
AlratanMobile: Which is why I like the SCMITR flechettes
TheBeardiestBob: What is that type of munitions called where it's shot aroud a central slug, so it's like the bastard of a rifle and shotgun?
TheBeardiestBob: Usually only used for artillery because it's hard to microsize and expensive.
AlratanMobile: Can't recall
AlratanMobile: The grenade shotgun shell is the Frag 12
01:40
TheBeardiestBob: ...reading on SCMITR, I think you could stack those arrow blades AROUND a smaller central [as above] wood/silver needle slug.
AlratanMobile: You could do
TheBeardiestBob: so you could get spread that, while admittedly less than pure flechette, would still contain the specilized ammo that also has sufficient mass and durability to puncture armor the flechettes could not.
AlratanMobile: Ash
AlratanMobile: Sorry
AlratanMobile: Spellcheck
AlratanMobile: Advantage off the flechettes is partially that they've great armour penetration
AlratanMobile: Much better than slugs
AlratanMobile: As their sectional density is much higher
TheBeardiestBob: sure-but then you HAVE to have straight up metal, and at best you could silver plate it.
TheBeardiestBob: and then it stops being nearly as effective against all those fun beasties.
AlratanMobile: Flechettes can also be designed to carry a payload
01:44
AlratanMobile: The US designed examples to carry VX gel
AlratanMobile: But, you have a point on the wood
AlratanMobile: If you had the patience
TheBeardiestBob: Examples of the SCMITR, or of regular flechettes?
AlratanMobile: The only declassified examples predate the existence of SCMITR
AlratanMobile: But the SCMITR design of being a twisted sheet of steel should be easier to design carrier pits
01:47
AlratanMobile: As you can stamp the indents into the sheet before twisting
AlratanMobile: It seems the kind of fiendish design a goblin craftsman might appreciate
AlratanMobile: The wood is a challenge
TheBeardiestBob: So the poison payload is still viable then-and you could silver the stack as well-but that still does not solve the wood or the fire comperatives.
01:50
AlratanMobile: Correct, you'd still want some slugs
AlratanMobile: But that's the advantage of shotguns
TheBeardiestBob: ..we were doing alternating slugs before-why not now?
AlratanMobile: Diversity of rounds
AlratanMobile: Could make sense
TheBeardiestBob: one wood kitbash, one SCMITR kitbash, alternating.
TheBeardiestBob: 32 round drum
AlratanMobile: I still want to Tardis up the drum
TheBeardiestBob: that would be sixteen doubletaps that, between the two shell types, do not leave much they can't damage.
AlratanMobile: But that might get expensive
TheBeardiestBob: Tardis-I assume you are referencing Dr. Who here, do you mean temporal shenanigans, or just make it much larger on the inside?
01:54
AlratanMobile: Larger on the inside
AlratanMobile: So it can carry more rounds
AlratanMobile: So when we run out of special ones we can whale away of full auto standard shot
TheBeardiestBob: Well..... the magazine IS seperate from the gun, and it IS a viable charm type-they'd just make the inner lining a fractal that folds in on intself so that it has a theoretically infinite length along which rounds can be slotted in-wouldn't actually BE infinite, but still. Only problem would be this would make reload the biggest bitch possible
TheBeardiestBob: like, tens of minutes to put in the new bullets
TheBeardiestBob: rounds, that is.
02:00
AlratanMobile: That's fair enough
AlratanMobile: 10s of mins per round?
02:06
TheBeardiestBob: no-to reload it, given that it can hold a mess, and those drums are not designed to be rapidly restocked.
AlratanMobile: Well, post goblin modification I can believe it
AlratanMobile: But IRL the Aa12 drum takes about 25 seconds to fully reload
TheBeardiestBob: more like 30, 35-but yah
AlratanMobile: There's a video of some nutter on YouTube who obviously has nothing better to do
02:10
AlratanMobile: I think that Armad can live with that
AlratanMobile: He should buy another magazine for it anyway?
AlratanMobile: Also, but the enchanted suppressor count as a separate charm as well, as it's detachable
AlratanMobile: *would the...
02:20
TheBeardiestBob: it would
AlratanMobile: Cool
AlratanMobile: Thanks
TheBeardiestBob: so, you have the enchanted forstock/barrel (external addon), the breach augmentation (trying to do recoil too would make it way too expensive and the AA-12 already has a phenomenal recoil system) for the acceptance of higher pressure loads, the suppressor augmentation to absorb the sonic boom, and the magazine mod.
TheBeardiestBob: that glitching your way into having a four-way enchanted gun right there.
AlratanMobile: Yep
AlratanMobile: Sounds good
AlratanMobile: And hopefully as each is technically independent
AlratanMobile: It's cheaper than a single weapon with multiple properties
02:24
AlratanMobile: I think we
AlratanMobile: or at least Zi think that selling the punt gun in return for the suppressor enchNtment would be comedy
AlratanMobile: The suppressor should naturally help with the recoil anyway
AlratanMobile: A side question, does the regen suppression prevent normal human blood clotting?
02:27
TheBeardiestBob: it does indeed.
AlratanMobile: As, if so, the major weakness of conventional flechettes is removed
AlratanMobile: And Armas might as well buy those instead of normal spherical shot for normal use
AlratanMobile: As sabotted flechettes are commercially available
AlratanMobile: Bigger game would still call for the special rounds
02:32
TheBeardiestBob: Idea
TheBeardiestBob: get a ten gauge pump sawnoff-you can get ones that are actually smaller than the matebas-and make the super slugs for THAT. You have a considerably larger round to work with, meaning a larger faux-stake.
TheBeardiestBob: then just keep the AA-12 equipped with the custom SCIMTR ammo.
AlratanMobile: That's a
AlratanMobile: Good idea
AlratanMobile: Or
TheBeardiestBob: which, incidentally, you will need to give Armas a reason to find out about, as his knowledge is predominately based on guns, rather than their munitions, so he is not aware SCIMTR exist.
AlratanMobile: Right
AlratanMobile: I plan to have him research shotgun ammo in depth
AlratanMobile: And historical devolopments of
AlratanMobile: It
AlratanMobile: 15 mins on Wikipedia should
AlratanMobile: Be enough
02:35
AlratanMobile: He needs to learn about Frag 12 ammo anyway
AlratanMobile: For using the AA12 at range
AlratanMobile: Imagine a mix of poisoned SCIMTR and HEAP rounds for special occasions
03:04
TheBeardiestBob: ...Uh
TheBeardiestBob: you remember the AA came with some Frag-12 in the drum when you got it, and Armas is both familiar with it and has used it to great effect?

>>347598
The ones you procured were one-use. They burn out when employed.

>>347606
Yes, they could sell you luck-but WOW, general luck is expensive as shit and fickle to define-personally I would not recommend it but yes they can offer it.

>>347973
I'll tell you what other players said, when asked to 'sum up your thoughts on Armas and Camella, respectively, in one sentence.

Savoy:
Camella: Who?
Armas: Quite possibly the most annoying hitman we have encountered-and someone who we will greatly enjoy murdering the shit out of-but only after torturing him, which in turn will be after destroying all he holds dear.

...In case you can't tell, Savoy does not like you.

Labombard:
Camella: Who? (Why it's almost like no one knows she exists!)
Armas: A bit of a dick according to other people, but effectively a little brother in our eyes-one that needs help not pissing people off everywhere they go.

Olga:
Camella: The whore of my husband's killer, the one that slew me-a monster given human form.
Armas: The object of my hate and obsession, low scum that must be purged.

Big Crazy:
Camella: Who?
Armas: I was specifically told he could not do magic-WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT!

>>347983
Less that she's a CQC specialist and more once she hits her 'go' button there are no breaks-the Camella pain train keeps rolling until she is dead or the threats are. There is not much middle ground. Olga was expecting someone that would, you know, hesitate to charge a gunman. Did not work out for her.

Wait Camella is a berserker? Is she a hot or cold berserker? To Big Crazy: Well, most of my abilities are not magical at all.

>>348036
considering how all the men leer at her I am guessing a hot berserker *zing!*

Kidding aside, what do those terms actually mean?

>>348050
hot is screaming rage style where you are so angry you forget you are hit.
cold is quiet. think of someone that got so mad they were calm.

>>348001
An idea on how to explain to the goblins how to make a suppressor to eliminate the sound of the AA-12.

Armas should look on the internet and find out how sound absorbent foam works, how sound propagates, and sonic booms. They need to charm the silencer so that it forms a small vacuum at the end through which the sound cannot escape, and alter the aural properties of the silencer to be the same as the foam.

To suppress the sonic boom, they need to change the design of the SCIMTR flechettes, so that pairs of them are attached together in flight, and have the following profile:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Busemann%27s_Biplane

Now, making paired SCMITR flechettes with pits for poison and the above cross section would be next to impossible for most, but the goblins should have tools like Keihas' bayonet which can carve metal like wax, so for them it's merely a question of time. We should investigate selling them the design in return for a life time supply.

Of course, Armas wouldn't normally think of designing those, so we need to guide him in the right direction. He should start by investigating the FRAG-12 rounds he took alongside the AA-12 originally. In the course of that, he should come across the various attempt to extend the range of combat shotguns over the years, which will lead him first to sabotted flechettes, and then to the SCMITR experiments and using them to deliver chemical weapons. At that point, his own experiments with making wooden slugs using Keihas should suggest to him that the huge difficulty in making them is much reduced by supernaturally sharp tools, and that the goblins should have them. At that point, when he considers his suppressor, he should be on wikipedia already, and a couple of clicks through there to sonic booms to suppression of them, should take him to the BB aerofoil design.

>>348036
About as cold as it gets.

http://quest.lv/kusaba/quest/res/297498.html#i315343

Is the intelligence line given to us by Cornelius one use only? I was under the impression that it was good for any time during the course of the wager.

><Dkay_> So why din't Smets have an ongoing order to protect him?.... Seems like a reasonable thing to do when you have an omnipotent servant instead of using ghoul security force.
><TheBeardiestBob> Because you have to be REAL careful with non-excessively straightforward orders to Amen-it follows cursed monkey paw wishgranting schemes.


Yeah, don't go ordering stupid things.
Or at least make sure that every order can be canceled in future.

>>348022
When you say "general luck", that implies other forms of luck exist. Do you just mean "luck in X" sort of things there, which would logically be easier to define due to its narrower focus, or something else?

As a point of curiosity, has Armas turned out anything like you thought he'd turn out when you started Gun for Hire?

It seems like magic weapons are significantly more common than other sorts of magical items, proportionally. Is that an actual feature of the universe, simple happenstance and we'll see more items of other sorts in the future, or a result of the kind of person that Armas is?

A suggestion for review:

We should also think about what we should do with Amen. It seems, given SM's reaction, that we may have a god on a leash. That seems like a very dangerous position to be in. I suggest that we make a deal with him for manumission. This may be the first time that it is possible for him to be his own master, as what happened to Smets may never have occurred before. We should offer to command him to extract Smets blood from Keihas into on object of his choosing which has a duplicate of Keihas' vampiric properties, which we will then give to him.

Of course, we should explain, whilst we don't approve of slavery, we're no fools, we don't want to release a horror on the world, and we think we're due a boon for a boon.

The offer is that we will make him his own master, in a year and a day, in return for certain considerations, if he lives up to his end of the deal and we still live. In addition, if he can manage it, to alleviate his boredom if he can no longer fuck with his master, we will permit him to experience the outside world through our senses for that year, of course, he cannot inform anyone else what he perceives without our permission, or use that information against us in any way. We will also treat him with full respect as a partner, not a servant.

In return, he would understand if we want to make our power come the day of his release a little more equal, just as we are making our relationship. He is to eliminate negative side effects from these, and if they need to be applied gradually over the course of the year, so be it, although if possible they should be applied immediately or when we ask for them.

He should create an accelerated time x100 training facility in the basement of the mansion. Those inside should be able to heal and learn, but not age, or need to eat or drink. Describe the Nevernever training with the goblins.

Our soul/spirit needs to be strengthened. Firstly the damage that Whaitiri did needs to be repaired, and then reversed many-fold. If it would produce a superior result, then can be have portions of divine spirit grafted on as part of this process.

Our mind and perceptions need to be augmented - and this is something that will benefit him as well as us. We need to see and hear better, as well as be able to do so during sensory extremes. We also need to hone our metaphysical senses. Once, we could sense the powers of magic items, but that has been burned away. We need that ability so sense magic and its nature back, but augmented to apply to all things. Our mind needs to be upgraded to process these enhanced inputs, and more, to be able to judge and discriminate more finely between their subtleties.

Our body is weak, mortal. We face foes that are semi-divine, or of equivalent nature. What can he graft into us of his own nature that we can take on without harm he can't repair. Bone marrow, spleen, etc, what is possible.

We would also like him to give fair consideration to continuing to work with us as a partner after his release. As his master cannot order him to leave the house, we imagine that he will still be trapped when he is his own master. We are prepared to extend the sense sharing when he is free, in return for continuing to live in the mansion under his protection, and would be happy to enforce contrition on any who slighted him during his imprisonment for due consideration.

All of this we ask, and offer, and whilst we may seem to ask for a lot, what is a god's ransom worth? It is only because we recognise his might and importance do we make these requests, but we are only interested in dealin if he will not seek to twist our words against us.

Still, we should pay the goblins to check the wording and prepare a binding contract to this effect.

As it's a Monkey Paw wish style deal, we need careful controls on what we ask for.

First, the accelerated time room:
The room has no ill effects on the occupants
The room has no effect on anything outside the room.
The laws of physics are otherwise unaltered
Beings within the room do not age, do not need to eat nor get hunger, to drink or get thirsty or to sleep or get tired.
Beings within the room are not affected in any way different to how they would be, save for the benefits of learning or training, by any time spent in the room.
It is impossible to suffer mental or physical harm in the room.
Can enter or leave the room at any point
Transitioning through the door way has no negative effects
Effect can be activated and deactivated by Armas at will
Is not detectable from outside the House

As a general rule, how about, 'Without restricting his normal freedom of action, make it impossible for Armas to suffer spiritual, mental or physical harm within the house."

>>348120
If we try this and this is truly a cursed monkey paw scenario, we will regret it. It doesn't matter how many meticulous controls we try to put on the bargain, we will overlook something and will end up royally fucked over, all the more easily because you're asking him to work major alterations on our body, mind, and soul. Saying that we'll only do the deal if he agrees not to screw us is pointless; he will manage to do so somehow regardless.

The cursed monkey paw is not a "handle with care" item, it's a "do not touch" item. Until we have a much better handle on exactly who and what Amen is, I have to oppose using him for any kind of get-powerful-quick scheme.

Well worded orders/contracts are not the right way to go about it. Look how well it worked out for smets and savoy (AFAIK something like "follow the orders of the bearers of my blood, if I am killed follow savoy").

This monkey paw is a sentient being, one much older, more powerful, and more experienced in twisting words and orders. And what about when he saved us with his blood but fully expected the initial backlash to render us braindead? (perfect master to follow, gives no orders so he can just assume whatever he wants)

We need to reach a rapport with him/her (why didn't we ask yet?). Lets lay it out flat to him/her and ask what s/he wants and either reach an agreement (we help free you, you serve us for X years faithfully and without misinterpreting things to our detriment) or just garner good faith (we are the coolest master ever, have fun OR we free you, no strings attached, now lets be friends).

Which of those paths we try to go down depends on what answers s/he has for us when we ask about what s/he is, wants, etc.

PS. did I call it or what when I said that the butler is gonna be something crazy dangerous compared to smets himself :P

so....
How exactly are we going to survive a fight with doonie?

someone before has suggested we bargin with the goblins to have armas train them in modern weapons in the nevernever. With the full ninja training armas got there we saw just how powerful that is. Armas could end up training all the goblins fully in all he knows about weapons in an instant (in the "real world").
It will save him hours a day, and it will give him a ridiculously large quantity of hours to trade the goblins, perhaps allowing more instant mastery from them.

It is a great idea, why haven't we persued it yet?

I do not comprehend why several posters seem certain that researcher you shot at was a Wizard-I mean, logically-would not a Wizard have some means of shrugging off bullets? So why run from them? And better, why would the wizard masquerade as a teacher at one of his own schools-it doesn't seem a sound conclusion to come to.

>>348218
I suspect it is because a casual read of the post where we got the target's information does not give the name of the person that we shot at, but spends quite a bit of time talking about the wizard Dorjpalam Khubilai. It's easy to conflate our target with the name being tossed about while discussing him. It takes a rather careful read to realize that they are not the same person, in fact. That only becomes more true when one considers that at that point in the thread there was basically no indication of the scale of the threat that wizards actually pose, and there are a huge number of settings wherein a sniper rifle could easily take out even a powerful wizard if he wasn't expecting conflict.

Basically, the original introduction of the target did not make him and the wizard extremely obviously distinct individuals, so someone who hasn't been following the quest obsessively can easily confuse them. There's no assumption that he's masquerading, just a misunderstanding of what exactly was being talked about in the intro post.

I made this very mistake until the game had been running more than a month, simply because it was an easy thing to overlook and the wizard and his university haven't come up again in-quest as something important to immediately focus our attention on. The information needed to correct the misunderstanding is all on the wiki, or here in the dis, or (presumably) in IRC; there's been no cause to double-check that faulty assumption by reading only the main thread so far as I know.

I have a question for bob, would eating Doonongaes heart and or flesh have a similar negative effect to when we ate the demon arm?

>>348230
Only if you did not have sufficient 'pre-healing' stored in the form of copious magical meals that the poison in the flesh could slay you before you started integrating the magics of the Doonongaes.

>>348247
Hm...

Note to self - come up with a dessert that incorporates the Doon.

or to be on the safe side buy a charm against poison from the goblins before hand.

If we keep doing crazy shit like that mannequin we set up, are we going to get the Refuge in Audacity trait?

All the character images have been deleted off the quest wiki page by someone or other, citing copyright violation. Was there an actual complaint of any kind that prompted this? If not, why do we care about having them on the wiki but not the imageboard? Could we avoid problems by throwing up a disclaimer saying that all the art is blatantly stolen and used solely for entertainment purposes which no one makes any money off of?

>>348285
That doesn't actually solve the actual copyright issue. You should just get some fanart drawn instead.

>>348288
The fanart that people have produced for this in the vast majority of cases is not really suitable for character images. That's not to say that they can't in the future, obviously, but when we already have a giant pile of character images why duplicate effort?

As far as the actual copyright issue- is there an actual copyright issue? Why would any of the holders of the copyrights for those images give a crap that we're using them for some random minor internet game? And if they don't care, there is no problem. If we get a cease/desist email for a particular image we can take that one down; until then, why worry about it?

Beyond that, what is the legal distinction between having any given image hosted and accessible through the imageboard interface as opposed to through the wiki interface? Both are hosted on this website and used in support of the same entertainment activity, are they not? What makes it less copyright-friendly to put on the wiki page than it is to put on the quest in the first place? I'm no legal expert, but it seems to me that they're effectively identical uses from a logical standpoint.

>>348249
OOOH! great idea. Refinement:

The goblins specifically knew to tell us that doonie is weak to cold... they know about doonie.

So why buy a generic anti poison charm when you can buy a specific antivenum that ONLY works against doonies poison. Be it a charm, injection, whatever.

Alratan 2011/06/25(Sat)06:37 No. 38602 ID: c2d0f1
File 130900904295.jpg - (54.69KB , 700x1000 , crown chakra.jpg )

And another version

Alratan 2011/06/25(Sat)06:38 No. 38604 ID: c2d0f1
File 130900911456.jpg - (52.12KB , 700x1000 , crown chakra orange.jpg )

And an orange one

Alratan 2011/06/25(Sat)12:46 No. 38617 ID: c2d0f1
File 130903118384.png - (680.91KB , 1500x675 , Sacral Chakra II.png )

And the sacral chakra

>>348417
I love the tie and women...

very nice. I especially like the tie.

you know, this isn't the first fanart with an awesome tie...

That cinches it. New subquest: Get a magic tie!

Now, at first I was thinking gold thread... but only organics hold magic well.
Silk then? Is there anything stronger? Maybe silk reinforced with kevlar (we don't want it to tear and be ruined); can have some gold thread too for flair... maybe for runes?
Now how to get it enchanted though... And with what enchantment... (to begin with, obviously the tie must become our most powerful magical artifact)

The obvious enchantment would be to have it fly out and catch bullets. although this is kinda boring...
mmm, I wonder if we can get an enchantment that to begin with does nothing EXCEPT for feed on sources of magic to grow stronger and maybe has some directions to how the power should be used as it is acquired.
It mustn't be blood, that will compete with the keihas...

Ooh, how about fast travel enchantment? like a shadow step thing?

Alratan 2011/06/25(Sat)15:16 No. 38625 ID: c2d0f1
File 130904019871.png - (828.63KB , 1600x900 , Sacral Chakra III.png )

As Armas is remembering is threesome with the elf and the vampire here (in a somewhat exaggerated fashion), then their nature is reflected by the dragon fly and bats wings.

He's also got a little bit of a smile on his face, which is fair enough!

>>348425
Nice improvements :P
If you don't mind me asking, what art program do you use?

I must ask. Wizards are nigh omnipotent badasses in the realm of their abilities right? What is the government (US, Russian, Whatever) stance on Wizards and their being so powerful?

By the way, Bob, I've been meaning to ask. This world is a lot like the World of Darkness. IS it the World of Darkness, or did you custom build a setting specifically for this quest?

>>38477
In order:
--Yes, Wizards are Big Deals in this setting-not to be confused with Practitioners, what most people think of when they think mages, who have a much weaker power, limited to a particular field (fire magic, mind magic, what have you), while Wizards can do pretty much whatever kind of magic they want-and the mechanisms by which magic functions differs between the two classes.
--In general, most post-industrial nations pay a wizard to be their official representative-in exchange for the pay, and having said nation at their back if they have to squabble with other Wizards in the nation, they have to abide by certain rules. Not all Wizards like this setup-and many in third world countries just do whatever the fuck they want-because they can. However, in most cases any given area will have a Government Sponsored Wizard, whose presence acts as a M.A.D. against other Wizards getting uppity, if that makes sense.
--This is not the WoD, nor in fact have I read the books for that setting-I made the setting up, with some borrowing from other works.

>>348479
Kidoki. That makes sense. And okay. I haven't read the WOD either, which is why I was asking. It just seemed similar.

>>348479
Now that the boat completely sailed on that plan...

was the plan I hatched a while back to have armas become a wizard at all viable?
That is, deal with courts / goblins / local wizard to sell off the nevernever strikes and whatever else they may require (say, a magic bond to serve the local wizard for X years) where they take X strikes and then strip armas of his magic powers (since you can't become a wizard if you have any) and then make sure he does become on on the next strike? or at least improve his chances of becoming one rather then spontaneous combustion?

Actually I didn't realize wizards are so powerful, wouldn't the local wizard have been able to do it all by himself if we provided him enough? say, killed his enemies in the lake, have him intercept a bunch of strikes. who knows how many strikes, serve him for X years, etc.

Can we sell Amen to the goblins?

I'd rather have whatever (hopefully bitching) boon they would give us that will certainly pay off, instead of a limited genie who really wants to ruin our/everyone's shit.

Also I think they would be better at dealing with him than we are.

>>348502
Nope.
Think of it like this: A person who qualifies to become a wizard is, from a magical standpoint, comparable to perfectly pure water. Once you have added anything to the water (water soluble materials, that is), it is practically impossible to restore the water to its pure state-it would be far easier to just get a new cup of water.

Since the analogy is relating people's souls to water... getting a new cup is not really an option.

Hopefully that makes it more clear why Armas will not become a Wizard.

And yes, Dorjpalam could have solved your Magic Strike issue on his own.

>>348519
If you want to sell your rifle to them with him as a package deal, yes-but Just Amen? No. The moment that blood leaves the rifle, it leaves the limbo state where it technically qualifies as alive-which would Mean the last of Sisuthros's line, and his blood-would no longer bind Amen.

In case you had not picked up on it-that would be bad.

>>348527
Fuck. Well Keihäs is so awesome I doubt we'll be willing to part with it just to ditch the doom genie of terror.

>>348527
that did seem very bad... for the vampires.
Whether it is bad for us is something to find out. We could negotiate with Amen for her freedom...

>>348527
also, good job of avoiding ever saying "his" or "her" in regards to amen, so that we still don't know.

“It was a great trip, shame you couldn't join us.”

“Anything special? Well, there were some highs and lows – I wouldn't spread my name around too much in Russia, if you know what I mean. But on the upside, Crazy and I – you remember Crazy right, he's with us now – Crazy and I made a new drinking buddy. Man, that was a wild ride. There's nothing like a properly Wizardly bender. Started off with mortal stuff - you know they brew some good shit back there in the Baltics, but it didn't quite hit the spot, if you get my meaning. It was then that we went after the proper booze.”

Wolf whistle.

“Whoa after we hit the special mead, the fun we had those long long nights.”

A smacking sound,

“What, you hit me, you fucking hit me, what the fuck did I say?”

A pause. “Hey, what are you looking at me like that for.”

Wipes fingers on cut cheekbone, looks at it, “Oh, yeah, the golden blood thing.”

A cough.

“Well, technically, I think that was the ambrosia.
Or was it the nectar
Or perhaps the soma.
No, definitely the Ambrosia.
I blacked out around that point.
… It was either before or after the nectar, I'm sure. Man, Bacchus knows how to fix a brew.”

Shoulders shrug.

“What?”

>>348556
i am not sure i understand most of this.
Who is saying what?

>>348574
It's Armas' side of the conversation with Camella when he rolls back in from his road trip, still drunk.

am i the only one who noticed horrible things happen to armas every time he drinks?

Since you ungrateful assholes don't read the logs I have so thoughtfully edited for you, I'll just post unedited text.

Just Ctrf+f for "TheBeardiestBob"
Sometimes Bob changes his nick, so be ready for that.

also search for "MrazyCan"/"CrazyMan" and "White_Sapient"


Read this and the previous logs I made and don't make fool out of yourself by making wrong assumptions which have long been made been clear.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sp215r57w38zl3l

>>348693
I don't think blanket labeling people 'ungrateful assholes' will make them inclined to read what you worked on-or indeed, do anything you ask. Perhaps courtesy would be a viable alternative?

>>348693
I have read every log linked in this thread or the quest proper.

>>348726
Bob, it's been a while since I asked >>348101 and I suspect you may have missed it; could I get answers for those questions, please?

>>348693
By the way, best part of that log so far:

[03:43] <TheBeardiestBob> Grail, I see a SLIGHT problem with your Savoy assessment
[03:43] <Grail> Oh god
[03:43] <TheBeardiestBob> you are operating under the assumption that normal body mechanics can be applied to a Demonic arm.
[03:43] <Grail> Slight problems turn into major problems
[03:44] <TheBeardiestBob> So....
[03:44] <TheBeardiestBob> the whole collarbone thing? Sure it will HURT... but the arm will still function just fine. Especially since the function you observed was automated.
[03:45] <Grail> Well if he does move it it's causing the bones to grind together
01[03:45] <Dkay_> but it should hurt Savoy if it moves, right?
[03:45] <InsufferableMystic> I kinda guess that, the arm probably has a bit of a mind of it's own
[03:45] <Grail> tearing at whatever is inbetween the two arms
[03:45] <Grail> bomes*
[03:45] <Grail> bones*
01[03:46] <Dkay_> I hope by cutting it off we will not have a loose hand trying to murder us a-la Blood (the video game)
[03:46] <Grail> If we lose a limb we are getting a goblin crafted one
[03:47] <TheBeardiestBob> It will hurt Savoy sure-but the arm's 'Arrow Charm' like abilities are AUTOMATED
[03:47] <Grail> And we can probably store a spirit in one.
[03:47] <TheBeardiestBob> which is why you should cut of your dick....
[03:47] <TheBeardiestBob> and graft this arm in its place
01[03:48] <Dkay_> BEST PLAN EVER
[03:48] <Grail> Wiping your ass has never been so easy
[03:48] <TheBeardiestBob> that way, if a collarbone gets fucked up, you can CHOOSE to do nothing-but the arm keeps doing it's shit.
[03:48] <TheBeardiestBob> ...How would pissing work?
[03:48] <Grail> It has holes for shooting bullets through the fingers
01[03:48] <Dkay_> DEMON ARM, I AINT GOT TO EXPLAIN SHIT
[03:48] <TheBeardiestBob> would it just be the demon hand opens up like a magician doing a trick and just dumps handfuls of piss in the toilet?
[03:48] <Grail> I assume we would have a five hole urination mechanism built in
[03:48] <TheBeardiestBob> What would you even say if you were in the urinal next to him?
[03:49] <Grail> Offer to shake his hand
01[03:49] <Dkay_> I wouldn't
[03:49] <TheBeardiestBob> and what if Armas' hand dick grabs your dick-what do you DO?
[03:49] <Grail> Gay demonic armdick tugjub
[03:49] <TheBeardiestBob> Do you just say 'hey, stop shaking my dick with your arm dick?'
[03:49] <Grail> Never did I think I would get to say those words
01[03:50] <Dkay_> That is something that Armas' dick-hand would do

>>348693
Why should I give half a shit about anything you say when all you do is insult us and act high and mighty when offering something of middling value?

So yes, specific luck enchantments are possible-say, something that would only manifest as a bonus to-hit with a given type of weapon, or what have you.

Actually, Armas is turning out pretty much how I expected.

Armas has run into a great deal of magical weapons because most of those in the criminal underworld-the place he's been exposed to it-prefer weapons over charms, because you can't really have a disposable magic weapon. Charms are not rarer than magic weapons.

i'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but what file types does this site take? I've been trying to upload a piece of fan art for a while now and i keep getting a that type of file is now allowed error.

>>348793

>Supported file types are: GIF, JPG, MP3, PNG, SWF

>>348805
thank you.

>>348778
>So yes, specific luck enchantments are possible-say, something that would only manifest as a bonus to-hit with a given type of weapon, or what have you.
I dream of being protected by luck. I want bugs flying into the face of people who try to snipe us, cell phones going off when people are trying to ambush us, gravel being just a little too loose under the feet of people swinging for us in melee, cars blowing tires when they're in hot pursuit of us, guns jamming or misfiring when bullets would fly in our direction. We should spontaneously decide to leave buildings just before bombs go off, and vary our routine on a whim the day that everything would have gone horribly wrong. I want our enemies' shoes to come untied, their vehicles to run out of gas, their throats to catch with sudden attacks of the hiccups.

And when people curse the fact that they were better than us and we would be dead if not for some completely fucking random twists of fortune, we walk away with a massive trollface grin.

I imagine that this would be rather expensive, particularly at a level where it would be any kind of reliable protection, but one day I hope we will be able to afford it and it will be awesome.

I am surprised so many people are adamant about saving the children. I am normally the crusading paladin type but it seems out of character for Armas as established thus far.

Letting it just get away with the children while we leave is the easiest solution, and prevents any further soul damage in our unstable state.

And of course, waiting for it to be alone with the children to kill all 3 and then dispose the corpses via keihas...

Of course big red will turn on Armas if he ever did that, so would camella if she found out... mmm, quite interesting. Armas is the "Smart Evil" guy in a chaotic good party. its pretty lulzy.

Although I gotta admit I am not averse to this new kinder armas.

everyone has things they will and will not tolerate, often with little logic consistency. Armas will kill civilians if it suites his needs, but that does not mean he will tolerate something killing children.

Armas hasn't really changed. He's kind of a psychopath, but that doesn't mean reveling in murder or not caring completely. His ethics stems less from empathy and more from what he's been taught is right and wrong. Throw in his time in the army, and rationalization over the fact he believes he's become addicted to the hunt(the thrill of killing monsters being the reason stated in the first post as why he wanted to be a supernatural merc), and killing seemingly innocent people for a purpose becomes less of a problem, hence the cop. Killing people for no reason or killing children tends to rank up higher on cultural taboos, and he obviously has problems with those.

Very few people want to believe they've become a monster, and as such most will rationalize why they've done horrible things, and then set their limits past that, pointing to those things as the point where one has lost their humanity.

ok... things to do.
1. We NEED to level up armas' feeding ability, this means eating more and more powerful supernatural entities... and over eating them.
This was not a good time, although we could have at least scarfed down the heart before feeding it to keihas. Something to do in the future.

2. We need to check if keihas leveled up again and now eats the meat and bones of anything supernatural (or natural) or if it just does so for shapeshifters and vampires. This means we need to touch it to some raw beef, as well as raw magic animal steak and see what happens.

3. It would be really really shitty if it feeds on armas due to an injury in battle (say, bleeding on it) or if its bullets start missing cause they are curving towards armas (due to having fed on his blood)... we need to figure a way to bind it to us so that:
a. It will never feed on us.
b. We can can control the level of its feeding on things (say, make it feed only on the blood and bones and leave us the meat to eat).
c. So we could siphon off powers from it for armas if needed...
d. So that if someone steals keihas from us we could track them or maybe even make it eat them. (if it gets the ability to eat something by touching its skin rather then blood... there is after all blood right under the skin, so close to the surface)
e. So that if someone steals keihas from us we do not lose amen. This is especially critical if we are in the mannor with amen when someone grabs keihas... amen could instant rewrite our minds, then get keihas back for us... we would then be its slaves... technically its bound to us but it rewrote us to order it to be free or even just order it to do whatever it want or to destroy keihas or whatever.

>>349023
Excellent things to consider.

We could sell the story of this WHOLE TRIP to SM for this.

btw... if we get the "make drinks we tasted ability"...

Bargin with goblins for a single ounce of donoongas flesh. Make a doonongas flesh smoothie with alcohol. Drink smoothy. Make a metric ton of the stuff and eat it / feed it to keihas for the lulz...

Honestly I don't see us getting such an ability without severe restrictions since its so game breaking. A limit on how much we can make a day and grigoir demanding that full amount... we could then substitute booze we buy at a store for some of it to allow us to create limited amounts of what we want?

Or you know what, maybe we will get it but it will be severely restricted.

>>349025
actually i just thought of reasonable restriction for the ability...
1. Limit on quantity (level uppable).
2. When creating things with magic charge, the more magical the more of our daily limit it consumes. So if we can start with a keg of booze it would only be enough for an ounce shot of doonie smoothie or some other ratio.

We can still use it to make emergency molotov cocktails, or heck, drink a TINY bit of high octane gasoline (very small amount wouldn't kill you), we could make various poisons (ooh, will go awesome with being a ninja... especially if our shadow can make it too), we could even do the above mentioned doonie smoothies except getting a sizable enough amount to make a big difference in large enough to make a difference would take years because of the strong magic charge in it.

When we phrase the suggestion to griogoir, we should put it as making drinks for each other. He would summon for us a drink that he knows, we wouldn't know what it is gonna be and how it will kick. And vice versa.

>>349025
1. Acquire vodka with gold leaf in it
2. Drink the vodka
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!

Oh, btw guys, I just finished a big cleanup of the weapon data on the wiki. Next time please try not to just copy-paste off Modern Firearms, it's really hard to read.

Oh man we are getting so much meat from SM when we get back.

SO MUCH.

>>349027
Savoy's ability is even more game breaking and he's a PC, though his players aren't very smart with it and he's trying to be a BBEG, so he might not have as many restrictions. Also not sure a wizard contract would ever operate under conditions like that, given that they work by being gifted a small specific bit of the nearly infinite capability wizard's possess. Leave it to Bob to come up with restrictions for things we get, unless we're actually talking about the base mechanisms of the power and inherent restrictions on it due to it's nature. More so, from my understanding, if we get the power from Grigori, he can't do it anymore unless he takes the power back or we die. If he dies, we would lose the power.

>>349076
>More so, from my understanding, if we get the power from Grigori, he can't do it anymore unless he takes the power back or we die.
I have to ask... why is this? I mean, a wizard's powers are basically limitless, right? So he can, say, throw a fireball or throw fifty fireballs, no sweat either way. What difference does it make that someone else has been assigned the ability to throw some of them?

>>349086
Well, a gun can fire one bullet or a hundred, but to let someone fire them you've got to give them the gun, not just some bullets. I think that's how it's defined. The wizard has to actually hand off the capability to the other person. They're not teaching you or unlocking the power in you, they're gifting their own, and as long as you have it, they can't. As such, wizard contract trump practitioner powers. They can take it back anytime they want too. Problem would be that if they did so and then gave it back, you'd have to spend a lunar cycle for the power to kick in again. But being wizards it's unlikely they'll need the specific power they handed off, able to use something else to do whatever.

>>349089
That.... actually works very well for an analogy.


OKAY-METAPHOR TIME

So-Practitioners are casual gun owners-they have one piece, MAYBE two, and the secondary piece is usually a supplement to their existing weapon. So, they can be relatively versatile, BUT-

Wizards are the Military. They have the best toys, and they have a shitton of them. A Wizard contract is essentially enlisting-you get your military-grade weapon, in exchange for not pissing off the military (Wizard) While the wizard is now short that one weapon-they are the goddamn military, they have a few extra.



Does... that make it more clear?

>>349121
That analogy is clear, yes.

I think my original bit of dissonance was because I conflated the amount of power available with the ability to use that power in a flexible and controlled fashion without significant focus or thought.

01[21:10] <Alratan> [20:58] <Alratan> so, where a shirt and gloves
01[21:10] <Alratan> [20:58] <Alratan> *wear
01[21:10] <Alratan> [20:58] <Alratan> and shdow bro's arm can sit in the shaodow inside them
01[21:10] <Alratan> [20:59] <Alratan> then, when our arm gorws, it's growing into and along the matrix set by the shadow
[21:13] <TheBeardiestBob> I saw that yes-did you see my caution it would have limited staying power until the shadow soul recovers?
01[21:14] <Alratan> no
01[21:14] <Alratan> that was everything until I returned
01[21:14] <Alratan> sorry, you returned
01[21:15] <Alratan> By staying power, do you mean, it can't manifest for that long
[21:15] <TheBeardiestBob> correct
01[21:15] <Alratan> or it can't exert much strength
01[21:15] <Alratan> ok
01[21:16] <Alratan> better than nothing though, in a pinch
[21:16] <TheBeardiestBob> it will weaken and develop shadow pain before ten minutes have passed, as of right now. And that's with you NOT trying to touch magical objects not belonging to you with said shadowarm
01[21:18] <Alratan> best used for things that can be rapidly deactivated then
01[21:18] <Alratan> like opening doors whilst running away
01[21:18] <Alratan> as that takes seconds
[21:18] <TheBeardiestBob> That works
01[21:19] <Alratan> or quick drawing and shooting and then stowing the gun, as that's also very quick
[21:19] <TheBeardiestBob> consider that while keeping it inside clothes like that you will visibly have no shadow-so unless you want everyone and their mother to know you have an ensouled shadow, I'd be cautious in it's application
01[21:19] <Alratan> can we get something else to cast a shadow for us?
[21:20] <TheBeardiestBob> having the shadow manipulate the door's shadow rather than manipulate and empty sleeve and glove for a faux arm is USUALLY-not always-preferable, in energy consumption and discretion.
[21:20] <TheBeardiestBob> How do you picture that working?
01[21:20] <Alratan> not sure
01[21:20] <Alratan> some form of semi-magic coat that has its own shadow
01[21:20] <Alratan> perhaps
01[21:21] <Alratan> probably not worth investing in
01[21:21] <Alratan> if we're operating at night, the lack of shadow is less of a problem
01[21:21] <Alratan> so we may want to stick with night operations
01[21:22] <Alratan> if we ever need to shoot at range someone, then lining up a shot with Keihas should take less than 10 mins
[21:22] <TheBeardiestBob> A coat that forcibly casts a shadow of the user IS something you could get-you'd need a personalized one to make sure it doesn't draw your soul shadow into said forcibly cast shadow, but it could be gained.
[21:23] <TheBeardiestBob> so it would be MONEY
01[21:23] <Alratan> I'm not sure if it's generally useful
01[21:23] <Alratan> after we recover the arm
[21:23] <TheBeardiestBob> but it would let you be a lot more creative using your shadowbro-even in daylight-without revealing the mechanisms involved in what you are doing.
01[21:24] <Alratan> that's true
[21:24] <TheBeardiestBob> since then you could-for example-stand on the edge of a big shadowed hanger, your foot the only thing touching the shadow, otherwise standing in the sun. Your shadow could move from it's passive state to suffusing itself through massive hanger shadow, since it qualifies as making contact with you. Anyone looking at you that ISN'T a shadowmage or soulmage
01[21:24] <Alratan> as we could send shadow bro off
[21:25] <TheBeardiestBob> will have NO IDEA you now own that mass of shadow, as with what they see your shadow's still at your feet like normal
[21:25] <TheBeardiestBob> couldn't send shadowbro off just yet-can't leave your feet unless you are actively standing in a shadow-and then it can only traverse that shadow's coverage
01[21:26] <Alratan> ah, what I was thinkiing was this
01[21:26] <Alratan> you stand in the light, with the tip of your coat enforced shadow touching another shadow
01[21:26] <Alratan> ShadowBro uses that as a bridge
[21:27] <TheBeardiestBob> That works-it's any shadow that you touch-even after Shadowbro moves. Normally this means you have to stand on it-but when wearing an object that casts an independent shadow, that shadow is considered part of you, for shadowbro

>>349612
>[21:22] <TheBeardiestBob> A coat that forcibly casts a shadow of the user IS something you could get-you'd need a personalized one to make sure it doesn't draw your soul shadow into said forcibly cast shadow, but it could be gained.
>[21:23] <TheBeardiestBob> so it would be MONEY
Alternately, could we just buy a second shadow from the goblins (or another friendly supernatural vendor) rather than depending upon an external item? They can buy and sell anything, so presumably shadows are on the list. That would remain effective no matter what we wear. Of course, it would also doubtless be expensive.

I do like this concept, though. It would help maximize our potential for secrecy and trollfacing.


On unrelated topics, why is everyone saying that the Valkonen style is so very perfect for Armas? The only thing I see about it that makes it "perfect" is that it's Winter powered when we've got a Winter bloodline ability unused. Have I missed something that would make it otherwise such a wonderful fit for him?

>>349621
http://www.martial-forums.com/forums/other-martial-arts/1746-kas-pin-martial-art-finland.html

Fighting in the dark. Utilizing your environment. Spears, knives, swords, and while it isn't in the link I posted, rifle+bayonet. Plus the fact that it's a Finnish based winter aligned martial art style.

A question:
if we learn the Valkonen style will that mean we will use our winter bloodline?
I like their style and all but I am not sure if I want to use up our free slot on that.

I remember someone talking about Eihenjar powers, which give superhuman abiliyies to the user at the cost of rapidly consumning nutrients. It would work perfectly with our Maori bloodline and if we keep upgrading them relatively at the same rate we could have powers like those mammon promised us without any cost.

>The Jutun theory
From IRC: Those giants with ice powers are just humans who practiced magical martial art for generations. Apparently magic causes lamarkian genetics.

>>349636
Yes, it would take your winter bloodline.

There is however a work around that would let you learn of their style AND retain the Einherjar option.

A workaround?
That would be perfect...

I guess this is some kind of puzzle we need to solve but which we will ultimately fail to do.
Any hints on how we could achieve both options?

>>349643
I have seen at least one poster postulate exactly the method needed for said work around on IRC-I do not recall who it was, but I know the idea is about.

Beyond that I only wish you luck.

So, I went through my logs and found the only five things suggested that could possibly get us both. I'll list them, though one of them stands out as most likely.

1) Marry into the family. Not sure how this would work, but fucking magic, amiright?
2) Learn the style through chakras.
3) Split our bloodlines into winter shadow, summer flesh. Not actually sure how this would let us get both, but listing all possibilities
4) Learn the style through shadowbro, and learn Einherjar through flesh
5) Nom on some delicious bloodline blood

Four seems most likely. Five seems kind of risky, as eating the bloodline blood might do magic shenanigans and lock our potential trait, but it might help reinforce four if we nom on some Eihenjar blood. Everything else seems unlikely, but I wanted to list anything that was brought up in public chat that might be what bob was talking about, since we don't actually understand full mechanics of this stuff.

>>349649
The mechanism I am thinking of (which is not to say its the only way to achieve it) is within the list here.

349650
>> 4) Learn the style through shadowbro, and learn Einherjar through flesh
>>two halves of a soul
>>two "souls"
>>two soul abilities
THIS SHOULD WORK

#4 Seems to be the most likely
#2 Is also possible

#5 Is always an option but the one we can't follow. There is no way we could eat any of these people even if we wanted to (which I dont)


While the first option is unlikely to be the workaround for getting both powers, it raises the question how will we convince them to teach us their style. Marrying into the family might be a way ... but to tell you the trut I do not want that. I am sure there can be other ways.

Can someone explain me what Einherjar is and how that power is supposed to work?

>>349689
I got a way to explain that without giving away too much-

Okay, you've heard those stories of little old grandmas lifting cars off of grandkids and whatnot, right? Muscle recruitment, and all that? Think of something that gave you that, but broke your body in a different way than 'puny bones could not handle 100% muscle output) Kind of a combat 'five minutes to the end of the episode' panic button ability, heavily melee oriented-which is frequently the range a panic button is pressed at.

Oh, thanks.

And I guess with sufficiently strong Maori regeneration power we could extend its use from 5 minutes to several hours, right? Or even indeffinately if we keep steady supply of supernatutal snacks (meat jerky, blood vials)?

>>349691
Sounds right. Not sure if Bob forgot he said this, but quite some time ago, while we were still fighting Doony actually, he told us in IRC he figured how the power was going to work. And that it worked by actively breaking down the body to go beyond even that panic button capabilities.

>>349688
Well, five is less about actually eating them, as the fact that they can heal non-limb loss levels, so we might potentially find a way to nom some blood. Still, having half a soul learn one thing and the other half another seems most likely.

This is going back to an older issue discussed, but it just became pertinent with armas suggesting to teach this family his stealth arts.

The nature of armas' sneaking is based on masking movement and avoiding attention. It requires armas to read attention. I contended that armas has learned to practice some simply magic ability to read attention. That if armas wants to "teach" the skill he needs to teach that magic ability and the bare basics and then just say "I taught you what you need to know, now you just needs decades of practice". Since its not plausible for people to master this art, it makes more sense to just learn to sense to attention. It allows no sneaking but provides an interesting utility.

There were two issues:
1. Was sensing attention taught first during a short duration (say, a few months), then based on it sneaking was taught for the rest of the years spent in nevernever. Or is sensing attention deeply intertwined with sneaking and it would take decades of learning both simultaneously to learn and master.

2. Does sensing attention really work via magic, is it really some sort of learn-able "spell" or spell like effect or just learning to read expressions, eyes, etc. I just realize the best evidence to it being a spell is that during the smets job, just before being shot by a sniper rifle, armas could sense human attention being singularly locked on him... he couldn't see the sniper yet he knew the sniper was human, there, and had attention it. This btw is the best sale for the spell, it lets you know when you are about to be ambushed or sniped so you can spring into action and surprise your attacker instead.

>>349727
wow, only 216 posts to the next palindrome.

>>349727
>just before being shot by a sniper rifle, armas could sense human attention
I believe that's not a "spell". By in-game logic it's more having a very, very honed sixth sense, the thing that lets you know when someone's staring at you normally. Some people have these in real life, or at least feel like they do at times.

Sure, it's supernatural on some level- but supernatural in the same way that tons of stuff in the Guns for Hire universe basically becomes supernatural if you get ridiculously good at it.

>>349674
All right, then let me ask this:
If we later realign our chakras and have them support a different spell than Shadowbro, pulling our soul back into our body... what will happen to our skills? We'd have two halves of a soul, each with a complete set of skills. Would we then effectively have two bloodline abilities- or would something happen that would weaken or rob us of one or both?

>>349691
As our Summer powers get stronger, I suspect that we could keep it going for a very, very long time as long as we pause to tear the hearts from slain foes and devour them on the go. They're like cannibal spinach.

>>349748
>All right, then let me ask this:
If we later realign our chakras and have them support a different spell than Shadowbro, pulling our soul back into our body... what will happen to our skills? We'd have two halves of a soul, each with a complete set of skills. Would we then effectively have two bloodline abilities- or would something happen that would weaken or rob us of one or both?

Switching Chakras doesn't get rid of Shadowbro, it weakens the hell out of him. One of the things that was discussed for his potential was once our soul gets strong enough, we could switch our Chakras to something else without taking too big a hit from his power. Shadowbro has half our soul. He's not a spell, he's half of what we are. He has no off switch.

>>349751
>Switching Chakras doesn't get rid of Shadowbro, it weakens the hell out of him.
Ah. That was not entirely clear to me. I had thought that our chakras were what was keeping that half of our soul stable rather than having it be crazy suicidal and incredibly stupid to shove our soul outside of us.

>He has no off switch.
Oh? This does not follow from his not being a spell. He exists primarily because he's half of our soul- but what was moved out of our body once could logically be moved into it again, should the situation call for it. Admittedly not many situations would logically call for it, but at that point our soul could go back to being one piece, could it not? Or at least having both halves live in the same place, which would effectively be the same thing only we might have a split personality.

Though whether we'd be able to get his skills, I don't know. Shadowbro obviously has an independent mind from us, and we'd have to integrate it somehow. Actually, our communication with him is really shitty and we should make improving it a priority- with proper communication we could have gotten a full debrief on everything that happened while we were unconscious, because he was presumably watching the whole thing.

Alright, if we can split our winter powers in two and effectively have two bloodline powers .... wouldnt that logically mean that we can gain ANOTHER Maori bloodline power? Also to be learned by shadowbro as I suspect the regeneration power is a power completely left for the flesh.

>>349762
No, because we already had a summer trait when our soul split. Both halves have it, even if it's not useful to Shadowbro.

>>349756
On the notion of an off witch, I asked Bob about it due to the shadow based power people fucking us up. The only way he goes inside us is if there's enough light for him to cast no shadow, and then he comes straight back out after. Kinda doubt our souls merge back together in this case. If we can meld them back together, that's less of an off-switch and more losing the power, by way of subsuming Shadowbro, which I don't think he'd like, having an independent mind.

>>349767
>Both halves have it, even if it's not useful to Shadowbro.
It may not be useful to Shadowbro right now, but I'm sure he can learn how to exploit it eventually. Devouring others' shadows or even souls might be within the realm of eventual possibility for him.

>If we can meld them back together, that's less of an off-switch and more losing the power, by way of subsuming Shadowbro, which I don't think he'd like, having an independent mind.
His mind was originally created using our psyche as a template, wasn't it? We're willing to do all kinds of crazy shit for power. If we could learn how to pop our soul back together and then apart again like a button, using the points of unification for syching our minds and souls, I don't see much reason that he wouldn't go with it. It's not like it would somehow hurt or lessen him, any more than it would hurt or lessen us. Neither of us lacks reason to want to acquire the other's perspective on and perception of events, and I consider it highly desirable to ensure that Shadowbro doesn't experience too much personality drift from Armas (or vice versa, to see it from the other direction), lest they become less of a perfect team as the months and years pass.

Reading back to how we made Shadowbro in the first place- using our Chakras' energy to manipulate our soul- there's no reason that we wouldn't be able to conduct further manipulations, although we'd obviously want to be careful and only conduct experimentation when both halves of our soul are healthy and strong. Strengthening our mental and spiritual connection to our shadowsoul seems very good in my book, because that's likely to be a path to a much more complete version of survival than we'd have if we died right now.

>>349774
Bob said that to devour shadows he has to become a shadowfiend, which requires him to have the other half of the soul. So, uh, not a good idea.

As for just popping it back together, would he take that risk while uncertain of whether it would work and knowing both of us are the kind of person to, if worse comes to worse during the merge, consume the others sense of self to survive? That's not a level of risk I think Armas or shadowbro would be cool with, and asking shadowbro to take that risk could cause problems.

>>349775
>That's not a level of risk I think Armas or shadowbro would be cool with, and asking shadowbro to take that risk could cause problems.
Oh, come on. Armas has willingly done all kinds of crazy shit to himself- his soul is a shredded wreck because of the fact that he's utterly reckless when it comes to risking spiritual damage for power. As Shadowbro is based on Armas' psyche, as long as we aren't completely making shit up as we go along and have a reasonable expectation of being able to make things go decently for both of our mental halves I would expect him to go along with minimal hesitation.

>Bob said that to devour shadows he has to become a shadowfiend, which requires him to have the other half of the soul.
We could probably work something out. Somehow make our half-soul way larger than normal, stick parts of other souls on ours so that we have the required spiritual power, or perhaps put our physical body into hibernation and abandon it to become 100% shadow for a while, then return and reclaim the body later.

There's always a workaround if you have the will to look for it.

>Shadowbro's Maori bloodline trait
...Er, was my supposition that Shadowbro's capability to draw energy from other shadows stems from Armas' Maori bloodline trait wrong, and that capability stems from an inherent trait of Soul Shadows? It seemed rather obvious to me, considering that:
-shadows have NeverNever gates within them
-the NeverNever was described as a 'multidimensional living world'
-Shadowbro somehow increased his recovery time while inhabiting shadows it didn't normally inhabit.

As the energies of the NeverNever probably leak through into shadows through the NeverNever gates apparently inbuilt into shadows, and the energies of the NeverNever are the life of a world, Shadowbro could eat them to heal himself, via his Maori bloodline trait.

Also, tangentially, could Armas really ruin someone's day by ripping open the NeverNever gates within their shadows? Those gates are probably not very big, but perhaps things happening to their shadows would reflect onto their body, and therefore explode them (if they have some magic saturation going on) or at least, make them panic for a while as they are forced to find a way to channel the energies out of themselves. Perhaps, also, leaving themselves open for an attack?

Probably too dangerous of an experiment to conduct currently, considering the state of Armas' soul. But, maybe, an hypothesis to test later, when a nice big threat of a successful NeverNever-opening within someone is desired?

All of the above are questions I would like for Bob to answer, if it were possible within the constraints of plot neccessity.

>>349797
And we have a winner-

Because of the format your Summer ability took-ie, imprinted in your soul-it is manifested in any fragment of your soul-hence why having shadowbro learn different things that you would only let you pick up one extra slot for a magical ability, not two.

And consider-if Armas was not sure his own mind would survive being absorbed by another Armas-even if it was another 'him' do you think he would do it?

>>349799
>And consider-if Armas was not sure his own mind would survive being absorbed by another Armas-even if it was another 'him' do you think he would do it?
Yes.

Armas loves taking risks, even completely unnecessary ones. He mouths off to master vampires, rescues kids in danger, lets unknown and extremely dangerous people with known and very deadly enemies sleep in his apartment, and consumes demonic arms with totally unknown traits and side effects. Hell, he's a supernatural mercenary when he could have lived a quiet life; every job he takes is a new chance to die forgotten and unmourned. This is just another way to risk death in pursuit of power and knowledge.

Now, I'm not going to argue that he wouldn't make every effort to stack the deck in his favor before going ahead with something like that, particularly when he's under no time pressure. Of course he would only go forward with it if he thought it would work. But he would be willing to hit the go button at "pretty sure" rather than "certain".

>And consider-if Armas was not sure his own mind would survive being absorbed by another Armas-even if it was another 'him' do you think he would do it?

I think the fact that it's another him that makes it less likely. Someone else he can gamble they have other ways to screw with it that he can take advantage, or that he can manipulate or outsmart. Himself? And for the moment a version that's been considerably less beat-up? No goddamn way, because he'll doubt whether he has the full picture, because he never gives anyone else the full picture.

*fistclench*

Why not just some ritual devouring of live creatures then?

Tie it down, make it cast a nice shadow by putting the lights at the right places, begin feast.
Shadowbrow chomps into their shadow in unison with you, not just following you as a normal shadow would but actively working in unison with you.

Eat it down to the very last morsel while still in the light and keep it alive as long as possible.

Thank you for the meal.

I think shadowbrow would get somn out of that, especially if te other guy had a soulshadow of some sort as well...

hmmmm
couldn't we awaken the targets shadow before doing the ritual nomming? Just twinge their chakras a little bit and give up a tiny sliver of shadowbro to push them in the right direction.
Then you eat them and get it back plus more.
We should try this.
And also learn how to force someones chakra open.
(maybe a tiny drop of Amen blood and have him force it open right before the ritual nomming?)

Ok so... armas maori bloodline trait involved a goddess eat a lot of his soul and then fill the wholes with some of hers.
Armas' soul is now considered divine for purpose of effects (ex: the healing he was receiving wasn't working cause she treated him as human instead of divine).

Now, armas currently has half a soul in his body and half a soul in his shadow... could those two halves each heal to a full soul? Perhaps another encounter with waitiri?

>>349748
I put "spell" in parenthesis for a reason. He isn't standing there casting an incantation, but there is magic involved.

>>349848
No, there isn't magic. About the only bit of non-mundane bit that might be there is supernatural cues that he's being watched being subconsciously picked up on. It's not some special power. It's being able to discern the difference between being observed and not observed, having focused on the differences between the two through decades of training.

Anonymous 2011/07/16(Sat)18:46 No. 40076 ID: 28e94e
File 131086716431.jpg - (37.19KB , 362x480 , ManAgainstWeasel.jpg )

>losing an eye and a foot to a weasel

>>349850
>No, there isn't magic.
He can tell:
1. The species of the watcher.
2. The level of attention.
3. When a sniper which is not visible to him is looking at him through a scope.

How is that not magic?

>>349896
It's paying attention to a sense that most people normally don't. Like one can theoretically determine all kinds of things about someone else from hearing their footsteps- weight, age, sex, even personality and mood- with a high level of accuracy. But most people don't, because there's no need or reason to develop their sense of hearing that finely.

Similarly, Armas has honed his sixth sense- the thing that gives people the vague feeling that someone is staring at them- until it can give him far more accurate and detailed information than most people would dream is possible. It's a remarkable achievement, but not actually magic.

That's my understanding of the situation, anyway.

>>349899
even if every person in the world has such a sense and doesn't use it, the sense itself is magic sense.
That is like saying performing a ritual that causes magic to happen is not magic because its using an ability every human has but doesn't know how to use.

>>349905
No, it's more like being as flexible as a contortionist when most people can't even do a split. Most people not having honed their ability to do something doesn't make having done so magic.

Dart666if we get a spirit like BC bear, put our chakras to physical augmentation and get the Einherjar could we learn the style?
TheBeardiestBobyou can learn it either way-and either way you wouldn't be as effective as an actual Valkonen
Dart666even with all that buff
TheBeardiestBobbecause that is all 'boost for x time' while they get to perform at that level forever
Dart666i thought chakras and the spirit were permanent
TheBeardiestBobchakra sure-until you reassign it at least. But what has lead you to believe a spirit does not have a giving point where it's power wanes?
Dart666BC never seem like less than superstrong
TheBeardiestBobDid you ever see him exerting it for a prolonged period of time?
Dart666i see
Dart666Is there someway Armas could gain permanent superhuman capabilities?
TheBeardiestBobHm... Getting bitten by a Vampire WOULD have worked before your Divine soul and Amen Blood contamination-now you can't be turned. I suppose if he got turned into a Loup Garou-his bodies durable enough being bitten wouldn't rip him apart as is the case for most who are bit and not born as them. The French Werewolves are quite powerful
TheBeardiestBobOr did you mean while still looking human?
Dart666actually i was considering becoming a vampire or a werewolf
Dart666could Labombard turn Armas?
TheBeardiestBobWell, I suppose you could make a Wizard, Divine, Demonic, Angelic or Draconic contract for superhuman physical capacity in a specific field.
Dart666specific field?
TheBeardiestBobHe would be rather heavily disinclined to-the blood carries a heavy curse that erodes at sanity and he is not motivated to give that to others.
TheBeardiestBobAs in-being exceptionally strong and fast, versus exceptionally durable.
Dart666is the madness inevitable?
TheBeardiestBobkinda-Loups are superwerewolves-the extra power comes at a price
Dart666and a normal werewolf?
TheBeardiestBobwould not get any more of a boost than an Einherjar would in terms of physical performance
Dart666would it be permanent?
TheBeardiestBobnormal werewolf? No, they turn on clocks until they get old enough to control it, Loups can turn whenever
Dart666could a wizard contract be used against the madness?
TheBeardiestBobIt would be a bit of a relative waste of a contract but yes
Dart666what if it was against any harmful mental influences?
TheBeardiestBobI suppose you could make a cost effective mental omni-ward of some form as the contract control for the Loup garou stuff. Only problem is Loup Garous are a Summer bloodline
TheBeardiestBob'swhat powers their INSANE regeneration
Dart666what does that mean for Armas?
Dart666would he lose his bloodline?
TheBeardiestBobIt means he might have some severe complications as the Loup Garou blood attempts to overrite his Maori Summer aspect.
Dart666would there be a way to fix it?
TheBeardiestBobI guess if you contracted a wizard, dragon or god to protect you during the event-would not come cheap at all.
Dart666could Amen do it?
TheBeardiestBobYou owuld actually need to undo at least one of the bindings placed on him over the millennia for him to manage it.
TheBeardiestBobprobably more-one is an absolute best-case scenario
Dart666is there any other way of going about, other type of creature he could become or a empowering ritual he could do?
TheBeardiestBobnope, that about covered it
Dart666would Mamon Device be enough of a payment?
TheBeardiestBobmaybe-depends who you go to, how you sell it. Won't work with all options
Dart666could Whaitiri do it?
TheBeardiestBobnaw
Dart666Ogrimir?
TheBeardiestBobyeah
Dart666would be hard to convince him?
Dart666he did say he wouldn't let Armas be unmade
TheBeardiestBobhe would be hard to convince

>>/quest/327050
>Einrik postulates that the Living Einherjar are the larval form of the deceased kind commonly found in legends, and that by using their ability to the point their body can no longer sustain life is what triggers the evolution into a Spectral Einherjar.

Given that we know Armas might be able to persist after death in the form of Shadowbro, what would happen if he gained the Einherjar ability and subsequently died this way? Would he just end up as a rather unique Spectral Einherjar with a shadowsoul, or would something more crazy and bizarre happen?

>>349948
I think you'd have to find out the hard way because telling you would spoil the fun of the allure of the unknown-and since there is no record of a similar event to even be found in the GFH setting, there's no way Armas could ever know before hand what it would be like, short of, I don't know, winning a bet with a god of prophecy.

>>349952
Fair enough. I suppose we'll find out when Armas dies, if we get around to Einherjar-ing it up before then. Assuming that we don't get even more mixed into his melange of magic tricks and end up with yet another form of postmortem existence for him, anyway.

On a tangentially related topic that just came up in-thread, how resistant is Armas to aging at this point? Assuming that he keeps snacking on magical food for the rest of his life, I can't imagine that the years will hit him as hard as most people- barring violence and misfortune, how long could he expect to live based on his current abilities alone?

>>349952
>winning a bet with a god of prophecy.

Ha ha very funny.

this is a bit far off but I think i have some stuff we need to get before we take on doonie.

1. its going to leave a very large corpse. we should make a deal with the sometimes merchant or some other force to have the corpse removed and butchered for us. (possibly in return for some of the meat, i think a tenth is standard in this sort of contract though we should specify not the heart.)

2. antidote. his venom is potent enough that a large douse could well kill us, and we should get at least one does for everyone who's going to be helping us.

3. ask Einrik if he has any advice. he's probably killed one. at the very least we should find out exactly how its weakness to cold manifests.

Could someone drop another batch of logs?

No need to edit them or anything just make sure they are as full as possible and that they continue from the last time (or just upload your IRC text file as it is)

Bob, I wanted to ask something about waitiri. When we first met her, she was nothing but skull and skin, after she ate us, she started to regain her flesh and previous visage. This makes me think that she has not eaten for a long, long time and was severely malnourished.

Now, when she talked to us about the food we need to eat, it sounded from her perspective that attaining magical meat would be next to impossible or at least very hard for us. Clearly, we have proven her wrong as we consume stupendous amounts of magical meat and soon, magical hearts of regenerating beasts.

What my question is, if Ogrimmir hadn't kicked her out, would she have been a Very Happy Camper while staying with us? And in fact, would it have leveled up our ability somehow?
I am sure she would also benefit from the meat we eat.

Figured I'd post this in here. Bob has a job again, so the three or more updates a day isn't likely to continue.

Is there going to be any way to remove this new paranoia trait? Or, if I'm really really hopeful, a way to make it a positive trait?

>>350169
Bob has said no, but we can find ways to channel it and make it useful. Still primarily a negative thing though.

>>350169
>Is there going to be any way to remove this new paranoia trait?
We could try months of therapy, but I doubt Armas would trust any shrink.

>>/quest/328855
All right, I'll bite. How does
>Is this going to fuck us somehow?
lead to
>...Oh god I'm going to need to start preparing for the feedback shit this could be bad-

but
>Shadows are gates. Your shadow is an active gate linked to you. Maybe something crawled through.
>the ritual to help attract the Einherjar weakened Einherjar enough that the seal on his Eldritch horror let something leak through, and something missing an eye is required for it's new host.
somehow lead to something positive?

I mean, I tried to identify a potential problem by putting together existing facts, with the intent of investigating whether it actually existed and we would need to handle it, and that leads to paranoia. This in spite of the fact that it was presented primarily as a question, acknowledging the fact that the threat might not actually exist and there were other as-yet-unidentified explanations, but that we had a method of dealing with the threat if it were in fact present.

Contrast with saying that nevernever critters might come crawling out of our eyes- from a gate to the nevernever that we have never put anything through and which our shadowbro is literally made of; he'd have been screaming out warnings and fighting anything hostile on our behalf. Not to mention that the inside of our eye isn't actually shadowed; it's a solid object. Or saying that eldritch horrors are nesting in our head based upon nothing more than the fact that we know Einrik has an eldritch horror and that he cast a spell on us once, again ignoring that Shadowbro can obviously detect such things and would be warning/screaming at us about it and the general lack of evidence that Einrik is either hostile or incompetent. In neither case is there any suggestion of ways to test these theories or possible courses of action to take for damage control if they're true.

Call me foolish, but if what I wrote leads to basic paranoia (which I would argue against if I thought there was a reasonable expectation of accomplishing anything thereby), then I'd say that what you wrote leads to locking oneself in a secure room with a gun and staying there for life while eating increasingly-ancient canned food. Advancing rapid rationalization must require some kind of reasoning rather than merely stating facts and then making wild guesses tangentially related to them.

Admittedly, based upon past trends it's very possible that I've fundamentally misunderstood how this game mechanic is supposed to work. If that's the case, my apologies for the criticism and I would greatly appreciate an explanation of the nature of trait advancement here.

as of post 329323 we are 600 more posts from the next gate to the goblins

>>350215
I think you're more or less right, but you're missing the fact that RRR is based on little to no information, and as such is really only different from paranoia, from what I can tell, in that our theories need to be right. Which is probably why RRR is a great counter to paranoia, as it automates right guesses to a certain degree. So in order to combat Paranoia, I think we do need to take some risk with our guesses, so we can level RRR.

Alternatively, you're right that reasoning need be involved, and your post wasn't based on reasoning anything out. It was just remembering the terms of the oath, and being aware of the fact that they'd been broken. Mine was an attempt to take what very little we did know, put it together, and then guess as to what the large chunk of missing pieces were. This actually seems more likely since Paranoia gained no experience from my post, presumably because it was a failed attempt at RRR. My next attempt should be right though :D

As for how based in reason my guesses were, we're in a highly warded estate. Short of it being an internal thing, which I wrongfully discarded due to the description of it being alien, it had to come from without in a manner that circumvented the wards. Our proximity to Einrik during a ritual that drained him of energy made his seal weakening seemed viable, and something stepping through an active Nevernever gate would bypass pretty much all of the Estate's defenses from my understanding. For outside sources we were aware of, those seemed the two only viable reasons. Shadowbro probably would be aware of them, but I assumed that creatures existing primarily as non-physical entities would have more experience with creatures that can see it, and thus would be able to hide from him.

>>350276
>I think you're more or less right, but you're missing the fact that RRR is based on little to no information, and as such is really only different from paranoia, from what I can tell, in that our theories need to be right.

The original trait descriptions are
>-Armas can reason and make intuitive leaps objectively even on subjects where he would normally be subject to heavy bias.
>-Armas has grained greater deductive and intuitive insight into situations he finds himself in!

While part of that is intuition, i.e. making accurate guesses with little information, that's only half the trait. The other half is using reason and deduction, and that doesn't even specify that we reason to a correct conclusion- there are a myriad of situations where logical reasoning can bring one to an incorrect conclusion thanks to incomplete or inaccurate information. So any strictly logical reasoning which brings us to interesting results should advance the trait just like accurate guessing, shouldn't it?

You do seem to be correct in that the only difference between the intuitive part of RRR and Paranoia is whether we're right, though. Which is a little weird, since it's not like Armas actually has any way of discerning between his correct and incorrect conclusions... though I suppose the traits might just be meant to reflect his habit of usually being right or wrong over time.

>your post wasn't based on reasoning anything out
Indeed it wasn't; just bringing a couple known facts together for a potentially relevant conclusion. My experience with magical oaths in games is mostly from Changeling: The Lost, wherein breaking a magically binding oath accidentally is both highly possible and can royally fuck you, so it seemed like something worth checking out. (Why yes, I might still be annoyed over what I considered a reasonable concern to be approached in a logical fashion making us paranoid, why do you ask?)

>As for how based in reason my guesses were, we're in a highly warded estate.
Your logic there still seems a bit sparse to me, but the extra bit of explanatory detail at least makes it seem less like rampant fearmongering and more like throwing darts at a wall with conclusions sticky-noted on it. Which, I suppose, is that nature of intuition.

I think the main reason why freaking out about the blood oath finalized the paranoia trait is because we already had all information we needed to know that it will not do anything.

Just think about it:
What was the main function of the oath? What was the reason why the made us take it? What were the Russians trying to achive?
...
...
That's right.
To prevent us from telling what happened in that village. That is what they cared about. The information leak.
The fact that it would kill us (or anything else) after we shared the information was not something they cared about. They needed to stop the leak.

The fact that we already spoke about the event twice and that nothing happened, that we felt nothing would have been the indication that the oath did not work. We might not know the reason why it didn't work, but it was clear that it didn't.
So, freaking out even after we proved that the oath doesn't do shit activated the paranoia trait.


The same applies why we got paranoia exp during the boat trip when we freaked out thinking it is doony. We already knew that because of the threat he made in the restaurant, he cannot attack us. Even then, we kept freaking the fuck out so we got paranoia exp.


So, my advice is, to think through your theories. Use all the information we already have. Cross-reference and proof-read.
And only then post the theories.

I think the main reason why Bob even introduced this trait is to stop us from blindly throwing darts and see which ones stick. Before, if 10 different theories were posted and only one was right then that one would be included in the update, which told us that it was true.
Now we will not know which theory is right.

>shadowbro
>:T
Stick in the mud he is. Can't even appreciate a good bit of the classics.
His world his tunes I guess.
..
...

Hmmm, if we get that Item that forcibly casts shadow...could we awaken that one too?
Not saying I want to since that would mean quarter soul for the body (or we split shadowbros...heh, though that has it's own set of problems), just curious.

>>350368
>We already knew that because of the threat he made in the restaurant, he cannot attack us.

You need to read over the specific threats he made. He can go after us, he just couldn't follow us home and kill us. He also can't go after our family. That's it. We still shouldn't be going out for a boat-ride on the Bosphorus.

I added that timeline from the first quest thread to the wiki. It needs to be brought up to date, but it's still useful for keeping what happened straight.

Hmm by any chance have we made it so that Amen cannot act against us or in any way that while not directly against us would be to our detriment even in the case where we no longer 'own' him?

If not I think we should.
Just sayin, I don't trust this guy father than Armas can throw him, and I'm sure that's not very far.

We need to untangle from Amen as much as possible and leave him only as an option rather than a persistent worry.
(If you are not worrying about Amen every time he speaks I worry about you)

Bit of vampire info from IRC-you'll have to parse for it's somewhat tongue-in-cheek method of delivery.

Cornelius_Zosimus As it happens, the European Dynasties thought it would be... /appropriate/ for one of the Dynasty's Sires to provide some general question answering services to certain disembodied voices in a fashion that is strictly speaking not canon but is nevertheless entirely accurate. And wondrous day, it was my own esteemed personage picked for this function. Joy. So, what queries involving Vampiric practices and politics do you ethereal entities have? Perhaps the representative of Troy has some questions?



ManOfTroy I do, Sir. What are the major types of Vampire? And what literary Works have the Vampires Dynasties corrupted?

Cornelius_Zosimus There are no official 'types', scion of Troy: Each Dynasty derives its traits from the dynasty sire, as per how Vampiricism is passed on via non lethal, repeat feedings. For example, my own Dynasty is influenced by me preference for Practitioner-like use of magic, specifically of a shadow variant-while some other clans choose to purely focus on physical reinforcement-and do keep in mind I am one of those vampires that participated in the corruption of certain choice literary objects-and have no inclination to tell you what was modified, or how. Would defeat the whole purpose of the action.

Cornelius_Zosimus So, while all are vampires, they can behave and perform very differently based on their clan. This does also mean that once you know what clans are known for what, it becomes relatively easy to get a rough assessment of a Vampire's ability by getting it's Dynasty-and if possible it's age. This does NOT, however, apply to psychological profiling-while magically dynasty members adhere to the example of their sire-who adheres to the format of their sire, etc., a given vampire's behavioral schema are entirely their own.



ManOfTroy Does pure vampiric strength grow with age, Mister Zosimus, or are newer vampires stronger? Not from the power that untold centuries grants a vampire, but from the pure strength of become a vampire - do new vampires become weaker so far from their sire, or does the eons of feeding mean that newer vampires are stronger, but without the experience and years of training?

Cornelius_Zosimus The answer is that a Vampire's strength, upon siring, is ONLY based on the relative magical potency of its direct sire. And as older vampires generally 'grow out' of the habit of making sires once they realize how potent the spawn will be, the magical strength of vampires has not increased on any level but an individual level for those that continue to survive



Guile And as for powers- do practitioner-like powers tend to run in clans, such as your own inestimable self's shadow magic, and are such things acquired with age, or are there other factors? Is it ever likely that a young vampire is stronger than a more antediluvian one? And is there a particular clan of vampires whose voice has more weight among their peers - a first among equals, as it were? The Zosimos dynasty, perhaps?

Cornelius_Zosimus To the one naming themselves after cunning, two answers: Short of starting with a fundamentally different stock-such as a magically active mortal, rather than a mundane (assuming you can locate one who, in being magical, is not rendered immune to the Conversion), younger vampires will not exceed their elders without living some rather EXCESSIVELY exciting decades to forcibly grow by sheer dint of survival. As this method has a very low survival trait, one can infer it does not get implemented often. Second question: There is the First Dynasty, whose founding and current sire is wholly a being of the nevernever, and is thought by some to be the origin of all vampirism. However, the last representative of the H Dynasty was seen some seven hundred years ago-they are well known for reclusiveness and secrecy. The H Dynasty's home, in case one wonders, is a secret even to the other Dynasty Sires-myself included.



Guile Only mortals can be turned right? What is 'mortal', anyway? The ability to die of age? It can't just be to bear offspring, there must be fae and similar beings out there who can do so...

Cornelius_Zosimus Mortality is three things: The ability to feel the flow of time-to change, to age, mature, wither and die with its passage. The ability to sire more of your kind without having to convert existing life forms to this purpose. And the ability to freely exercise free will. As it happens, only humans meet all three of these criteria as a species. There are individual entities that fit all three criteria that are not human, but are uncommon enough they can be appreciably ignored for statistical purposes.



ManOfTroy Mister Zosimus, this H Dynasty, where they the origin of the feud with the werewolf lineages?

Cornelius_Zosimus The H dynasty has been implicated in the feud by the werewolves, while we hold their founding Clan, known only as Clan M, was the instigator. As neither Clan M nor Dynasty H has commented on the contention, the issue is still open to interpretation.



Guile Well then, to turn my earlier questions around- are there differing levels of immortality? Can one be just a little immortal?

Cornelius_Zosimus To a degree. Some things are only immune to the ravages of time-chronologically immortal, but still mundanely slayable. There are also those who can safely ignore nearly all forms of mundane harm-and those who can ignore most forms of magical harm. Quite frankly, there are more variations of 'Immortal' then there are of 'Mortal'.



So yeah, there's a wee bit of general vampire information from IRC.

>Ogrimar: That eye will slay you if you try to pluck it-and should you leave it to wallow in fear it will rob you of your soul
Sealing the eye bought us time, but we must solve the issue. Letting it just fester on its own will result in loss of soul, unacceptable...
We thus should unseal it in a controlled environment and actively influence the battle inside so that we control the victory conditions.

>>331460
>Ogrimar: "Be aware, from the start, that should you make Contract with me, Mortal, you will have to slay any Einherjar you meet, without exception-you need not slay them the moment you lay eyes on them, but they cannot escape your presence once noted-and this will not be negotiated."

>Ogrimar: I have other agents in istanbul (more or less, not verbatim)

>>327050
>That night he notes he found the passage he was thinking of-long story short, Einherjar can exist in two forms-there's the warrior that died in glorious battle, a spiritual warrior in Valhalla-or a living warrior, drawing forth additional power from their soul by sacrificing parts of their flesh. The process doesn't involve mutilation, but a magically driven consumption of flesh to power the body being sheltered from it's full might. By this, it seems that Living Einherjar can force themselves to perform without Limiters on their muscles, without risking breaking their bones or tearing muscles and ligaments, but it comes at the cost of rapidly draining stored energy and calories from their body. Einrik postulates that the Living Einherjar are the larval form of the deceased kind commonly found in legends, and that by using their ability to the point their body can no longer sustain life is what triggers the evolution into a Spectral Einherjar. He also notes that he's fought quite a few people using Einherjar powers before-and while he still does not think it the equal of the house's style, he sees no inherent reason to call the ability poorly designed: Power, speed and reflexes are all increased without putting the body to undue strain for a direct amplification ability.

>Moving from there, he notes that to make a blank bloodline become Einherjar inclined, he knows of exactly one method-that being to get into a mortal fight with another Living Einherjar, and slay them. He supposes other methods could exist, but its the only one he is personally aware of.

Now, unless I am reading this wrong, armas would become an Einjerhar himself should he slay one. While the exact wording of his agreement with ogrimar does not require suicide (he does not leave his own presence), I wouldn't want to make an enemy of ogrimar and to fight his other agents.
However, it is possible that I am misreading it. So if anyone has input on this issue please share.

>>350499
I would like to know that too. Did we make it impossible for us to have einherjar powers?


Also, consider that we have a lure and we will know when they are near us.
This means we can lay down some wicked traps. If we don't encounter any while staying in finland or during the trip home, we should, as soon as we come back, take 10-20 hours lessons on trap-making from the goblins.

>>350502
first take 1 hour learning about them. We want to know what they are weak against and their exact strengths.

>>350502
All I shall say at this juncture is that you did not make it impossible to become an Einherjar.

hey i was rereading the quest when i noticed this bit.

>[EV][In English]"The world of Magic is vast indeed, and I am thankful for the chance to see this-the pre-existing demonic and divine energies of your own body, your personal taint of respective origins clashing and reacting with another Divine source-one that's capable of self-replication

that's in addition to the deal we made with the summer deity. unless we took a bite out of a god during the job we did for the goblins that's probably amen's blood that he's picking up. the bit about self replication is somewhat worrying, and so is the part where its divine. what the hell is amen? Einrik might be able to tell us what the self replicating divine thing is, and maybe tell us more about it.

hey i was rereading the quest when i noticed this bit.

>[EV][In English]"The world of Magic is vast indeed, and I am thankful for the chance to see this-the pre-existing demonic and divine energies of your own body, your personal taint of respective origins clashing and reacting with another Divine source-one that's capable of self-replication

that's in addition to the deal we made with the summer deity. unless we took a bite out of a god during the job we did for the goblins that's probably amen's blood that he's picking up. the bit about self replication is somewhat worrying, and so is the part where its divine. what the hell is amen? Einrik might be able to tell us what the self replicating divine thing is, and maybe tell us more about it.

Would there be any kind of supernatural effect if, when Armas goes to New Zealand to reconnect with Whaitiri, he got some moko (Maori tattoo that is cut rather than punctured) done?

Hey Bob, will there be some kind of Highlander ("There can be only one!") aspect to Einherjar powers and the Einherjar hunting?
I mean, would it be possible to improve the power by killing additional Einherjars and claiming their soul/power like the initial power acquisition demands us of doing?

Would be pretty awesome and would make Eiherjar hunting a much more lucrative prospect than it is now.

Also, I think the way to get those powers is just to take the powers but no additional responsibility/oaths that go with them. I suspect that the "right" way to become an Einherjar is to make a similar contract with Odin (or whatever) and he would grant those powers. If we just kill one of them and claim their powers, we should not be bound to anything. We would just take their "tools".

To make this more relevant, an example: A taliban guerrilla who kills an American soldier then takes his rifle and fancy helmet doesn't suddenly become an American soldier who is bound to the same oaths and other taliban fighters will not suddenly regard him as an enemy.
I think we could spin the "taking" Einherjar powers like the example I just made. Just because we have their powers, doesn't mean we become them (Maybe. Who knows how the things in magical world actually work?).

Got a couple of things to bring up about posting numbers.

First, we're approaching >333333 which is both a repdigit and a palindrome.

Second, we're going to hit a string of 3 sexy primes soon, >333667, >333673, and >333679

Sexy primes are primes that are 6 apart. They're rare compared to the overall set of primes we're likely to reach, and getting a cluster of three in a row like this is not very common at all.

Finally, there's a harmonic divisor number coming up, >360360, the first number divisible by 1 through 15 inclusive.

There's some other stuff coming up too, but those were the most interesting ones. I remembered the sexy primes and that prompted me to go look up the other stuff. If you're at all interested there's a list of interesting numbers in this sequence on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100000_(number)

"Those who joined Odin in Valhalla were ... heroes who followed the god in life and pledged him their loyal service in return for his help." This is a quote from Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by HR Ellis Davidson. It seems to support the idea that some kind of Contract with Odin is required to actually 'become' an einherjar.

>>350588
good points.
plus:
>>/quest/332804
>In fact, I'd venture your possession of as much winter capacity as a Compounded Bloodline-well, not [i]quite like myself or father... but perhaps like Tuomo and Veiko, generally speaking. But, unlike anyone who is from a Clan that would lead to such an infusement of magic would perforce already have that bloodline slated for use from birth. Yours is still flexible and open-Einherjar, plural, I believe could be the foundation of your Winter Bloodline. ...But enough ruminations for the moment-"

Einherjar, plural, could be the foundation of a armas' winter bloodline... not him becoming AN Einherjar (singular, state of being), but rather getting a bloodline whose foundation is Einherjars.

>>3550558
Assuming you find someone proficient in arcane runing based magic and is likewise a skilled tattooist/moko tattooist, and is inclined to offer such to Armas-yes, there could be, dependant on Armas' state at the time, who's doing the work, whether ink or moko, the design, placement-all are factors.

>>350563
Only to the extent you can fit five Einherjar soul's worth within your Winter bloodline, having them compound one another and ultimately become something that was never really designed for the human body-quite frankly, what you'd have at that point would be best used by someone as sturdy as a Valkonen so they don't start breaking, even with the reinforcement.

...Oh wait Armas can store pre-healing and regenerate. Maybe he could use it. Wonder how the healing and literally physically overwhelming power would interact?

But no, no Highlander effect of killing more beyond those five making you stronger-beyond what you would get if you decide to just straight up cannibalize them, or their souls directly. Which... would really, REALLY piss off the Valkyrie that comes for the Einherjar, and the greater Norse pantheon something fierce-felling them in fair combat, and claiming, as victor, a physical trophy, and choosing the heart after a fairly fought contest to the death (as in both know the fight are starting, anything AFTER is mostly fair game, but Armas is most effective with surprise) is something even some of the Einherjar won't object to.

...So long as you don't eat the heart then and there, without some REAL smooth talking to back it up. I mean, fucking phenomenal linguistical prowess.

Eating six and beyond hearts will just continue to saturate your body with magic-you will have already fully incorporated as much Einherjar as you have blank bloodline, and gain no further appreciable benefit worth the harvesting difficulty.

>>350608
MrTT brings up a rather critical distinction, where it comes to your Contract with Ogrimir.




Did I miss any questions?

I have to say, the temptation to say to Markku, "Sir, I already knew you to be a thief, but a liar as well? To do both so shamelessly to one who is not only a guest, but has already done you great kindness, is a shamefull thing. I had hoped I had brought the orphans to a family who could be trusted with their care, but now I am confronted with such evidence of you lack of honour... Well, it takes the breath away."

Of course, we can't but this is proper cheek.

>>350631

You're such a sperglord.

What happened between the start of the trip and Pobadino?

>>350665
I suppose you'll have to get Armas drunk-not enough to pass out, but enough to be more forthcoming-and instead of any of the other myriad topics he may normally enjoy pondering, choose this topic and have him reminesce. Though if I may suggest, a better spent period of recollection would be one directed at his issues with rocket launchers, bazookas and RPGs-THAT shit is actually pretty relevant, but he never really likes to think about it.

I digress, but by this point I think you are aware I do that.


More questions?

Just a few christmas gift ideas I didn't want to clutter the quest thread with.

>>333472
Nothing wrong with sending people alcohol for Christmas.

Do we have any of the mead left that SM sends us? Bet the merc squad would like to try it. Though I'd really like to just bring some when we go out to get drunk some time. We could just send them a keg.

Cornelius, well... we do have a cellar presumably full of that bloodwine stuff. Although maybe we should save that for when we get an arranged meeting with the vampires (if that's still happening).

If we can't think of anything better for Arkvad, there are some expensive, quality whiskeys out there.

Riker gets a singing telegram detailing Vladimir Chugainov's latest antics, love Armas.

Big Crazy: a dreamcatcher. Non-magic.

Ito: a month's supply of viagra.

Rocco Armani... Godfather boxed set? Bet he gets that every christmas.

If we could find Savoy, we could send him http://www.eballz.com/new/trophy.html, engraved with the insult of our choice.

>>350668

Hey, do his issues with such weapons extend to molotov cocktails or are those on the "safe list of unsafe things"?

>>350674
Safe list, most def. Anything he throws by hand is good-and anything treated like an upscaled bullet (40mm grenade launcher, for example) is largely fine. It's ONLY devices that have self-propelled munitions.

This would mean if he EVER got some gyrojet pistols he would feel uncomfortable using them-

But molotovs, grenades of all sorts-TOTALLY fine.

>>350675

Wait, what about a Djakanov-type rifle grenade? The old kind, vintage WW2, where the grenade launcher is mounted on the muzzle of the rifle, and then launched by shooting a normal cartridge (as the grenade has a hollow that allows for the bullet to pass)?

Like this: http://operatorchan.org/k/arch/src/k268650_Russian%20WW2%20grenade%20D-32%20Djakanov%20Mosin-Nagant%20rif.jpg

http://operatorchan.org/k/arch/src/k268651_Russian%20WW2%20grenade%20Djakonov%2040.6mm%20Mosin-Nagant%201.jpg

For the Doonongaes: a large eel with "suck it, doony" carved into the side.

>>350669

I want to send Savoy some of these: http://www.neuticles.com/

Poodle sized.

... Do it.

Christmas gift ideas.

As far as I know, Armas' parents are both alive. Unfortunately, aside from the fact that they have some family connections they're willing to pull on his behalf, we know nothing about his relationship with them, so it's difficult to recommend gifts. A handwritten card wishing them love and a fairly minor mundane gift which suits their known tastes.

Likewise, Armas might have other relations and friends from the Marines or Rangers who are deserving of gifts and we simply have never heard about them in-game because they're not relevant to the current situation. That doesn't mean that Armas has forgotten about them, though, and he'd be likely to send them something. Something fairly small but which shows that Armas has not forgotten them and their tastes should suffice in most cases- good booze of whatever sort they like, music they'd appreciate, or if someone has a habit or fondness for something else that Armas knows send something related to that (ex., Armas might send someone like himself an orange tie). This can also apply to Arkvad and Riker, but as they've been useful contacts their gifts should be proportionately better (more expensive booze, probably).

Camella, who is more than likely responsible for saving our life on the Smets job, gets a big present. I stand by the suggestion of Brandt's oversized super-gun, because while it's highly valuable we're likely to never use it for anything since we've got tons of other weapons- and Camella would. If we need something that requires its firepower we can bring her in on the job.

Big Crazy... I'd say that he can keep the Tokarev we've already loaned him. We're probably never going to use it, and while it's enchanted and worth a fair bit, so what? That's only stuff, only money. Friendship is better and he's been quite tolerant and a decent guy to hang out with. Definitely do not get him anything which involves his heritage in any way; we make more than enough race jokes.

The mercenary crew can get a keg of some kind of awesome booze, as suggested. Actually, considering how good the Valkonen booze was when we first tried it, I bet that we could get away with sending them a single flask of that each if the Valkonens will let us. Hopefully this will send the message that we might be into the supernatural end of things, but we're like that in a cool way that pays dividends in the form of deliciousness.

Ito should get something which shows our appreciation as his student. Unfortunately, nothing comes to mind. Perhaps a list of all significant martial arts tournaments scheduled for 2011 with a note attached that says "pick one", the implicit gift being that we'll enter it? We did say that we planned to do so when persuading him to take us on.

Labombard and Go ping I unfortunately cannot think of anything great for. Most mercenary-style gear they'll have for themselves already; for example, an axe was suggested for Go Ping but I suspect he's already got some kind of awesome magical axes, or at least super-high-quality mundane ones. And our relationships are largely based upon mercenary work, although rereading our interactions with them might offer additional hints as to what would be possible gifts.

Einrik it was suggested that we let him copy that notebook we made when studying stealth. We've moved far beyond needing it, so we might as well give it to him outright- though I'm not sure how useful it would be to him, it does contain much of what we took away from the goblins' direct instruction, so there are probably insights there that we can't effectively give him since we're not the best teacher. We might also let him look up the relevant bits of our memories to reference.

Markku we can get some of that mead, possibly getting him a periodic delivery deal or just ordering that our existing supply be rerouted to be delivered to him for however long.

We need to get Hillevi something particularly carefully chosen, because she's got a massive crush on us and will read a ton into whatever we give her. And she healed us and has been quite nice in general. I will continue to think on the matter and hopefully come up with something ingenious when I'm less exhausted.

No idea what to get Helmi, but it would need to be something fairly good since she helped out with our eye. Unfortunate that we know so little about her.

No idea for the brothers either. Some kind of delicious food they can't normally get would probably suffice.

The Riihivuori children I wanted to get a laptop with encrypted satellite net access as both a useful tool in keeping their hand in the modern world if they end up spending extended periods in places like this, and a statement on Armas' part that he wishes to keep in contact with them (email, Skype, etc.) The idea that the Valkonen wards might block their net access did not occur to me, but would be worth asking about- I doubt they were built with any capability that would block satellite communication, but who knows? Dreamcatchers would be great but the impression I got from Big Crazy was that they would b very difficult to come by.


The Doonongaes and Savoy taunt gifts suggested already seem fairly hilarious. Not currently supporting any other gifts for the various supernatural figures that we know, unless we can come up with something good for Sometimes Merchant. He's the only one of them that we've got anything like a mutually beneficial working relationship with.


As to the how, overnight and/or goblin delivery would hopefully get everything there in something resembling a timely fashion. We'll have to come up with something for Sometimes Merchant to make him willing to have minions play post, though.


More thoughts on this when I'm more coherent, I hope.